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t LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 



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J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



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D E R W E N T; 



RECOLLECTIONS 



YOUNG LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 



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By JOHN CHESTER. ; / ' '' A''YR!GHT \<\ 

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The scenes of my early life hare crept into my mind 
like breezes blown from the Spice Islands. 

COLERIDSB. 



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ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 



770 Broadway, New York. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1S73, by 

A. D. F. Eandolph & Co., 

In the Ofllce of the Librarian of Conc^-ess at Washington, D. C. 



Edward O Jenkins, 

PRIHTER JND STEREOTYFER. 

20 North WUliam Street, N. Y. 



Childhood and youth are to age a storehouse of 
memories. All the incidents and feelings of our young 
life — our pastimes, our haps and mishaps, our reveries, 
our penchants, our schools and schoolmates, our attach- 
ments and dislikes, the characters we note and study, 
the manners and customs of the time — all these and 
many more things, impress themselves so deeply on the 
memory, that they never perish from it. If, during the 
busy period of middle life, they are lost sight of for the 
time, yet in the evening of our days, they reappear with 
great distinctness, and are often adverted to, if not 
habitually dwelt on. 

It would not be of much interest to the reader to 

know how many years have passed over the writer of , 

these sketches. My memory goes back distinctly to the 

beginning of this century, and a little way, faintly, into 

the last ; how far, I cannot say ; for who can tell which 

is the very earliest of the things he can remember } I 

can return, in thought, along the pathway of my life, 

(3) 



4 

through sunshine and shade, till, arriving at limits un- 
defined and visionary, I seem to lose myself in the light 
of a cloudless morning. 

^ I shall ever think myself most fortunate in having 
been brought up in the country, and on a farm. Around 
me, in my childhood, were green fields, almost elysian in 
my young eyes, sparkling waters, musical cascades and 
brooks, lights and shadows, old groves, ravines, pathless 
woods — all the poetry of nature. To these advantages 
were added the wholesome industries of farm life, 
kind neighbors, good examples, and the absence of the 
peculiar temptations of cities. 

It is of young life in such circumstances that these 
pages speak. They comprise a miscellany of sketches 
and reflections intended for the young or the old, and 
such as any one whose early life is, or was, in the 
country, may make in some degree his own ; and where 
the writer himself appears in them, it is not with any 

' autobiographical intent, but only because he finds it 
easier to use the first person than the third. 



CONTENTS 



Paoe. 

Dekwent, 9 

OuE Home, 19 

Fetchikg Fire, 25 

Going to Mixl, 33 

A Starlight Ride, 41 

The Blinding Wood, 47 

Childhood S^lns Souci, 55 

Our Farm, 61 

Farm Work, 67 

Fetching Cows, 85 

Our Derwent School, 99 

Jack-o'-Lanterns, 121 

The River, 131 

Annals of the Meadow, 149 

Cattle, 159 

Sheep, 175 

Dogs, 185 

Birds, 209 

Studies in the Woods 237 

A New House, 253 

Turnpikes, 271 

Derwent Chabactebs, 285 

The Old ThatJksgiving, 303 

Saturday Night, 313 

The Country Sunday, 325 

The Two Great Educators 349 



I. 



DERWENT. 



DERWENT. 



DERWENT was one of the four parishes in 
the broad old township of Fenwick. It is 
a town now ; but I love best to remember it as a 
parish. That term best suits its old-time history. 

It was a rural, cheerful district everywhere, 
with much of the picturesque in places, — dells, 
rocks, brooks, woods, sightly hill-tops, and pleas- 
ant meadows. 

The Derwent waters were pleasing features of 
the place. There was the broad Connecticut in 
front. That shall have a separate notice bye and 
bye. There were the Derwent and the Little 
Derwent, tributaries to the Connecticut. It is re- 
markable that streams will never run straight, if 
the)'' can help it. Among hills they must run 
crooked, taking such courses as the valleys open 
to them ; but they will cut for themselves ser- 
pentine channels through the softest flat mea- 

(9) 



lO D E R WEN T. 

dows, and often, shifting ones, as though sonne 
freak, or whim, possessed them. That was the 
way of the Derwent ; a vessel following its wind- 
ings, through bush and meadow, would be long 
under your eye, if you watched it, — ^its sails now 
filled, and now flapping, as the humors of the 
stream made the wind fair or foul for it. 

The Little Derwent was a pretty stream, reach- 
mg inland a mile or more, ebbing and flooding 
with the river tides to that extent, beyond which 
it became a brook. Wild ducks and other water 
fowl delighted in its broad marshes. Cranber- 
ries grew in these spontaneously, not in any 
quantity for the market, but enough of them to 
pay you for a wet foot, if a handful or two would 
satisfy you. The sachem-pea also grew there, 
whose large, velvety leaf you could not wet, the 
water rolling off" from it as it does from a water- 
fow.s breast. 

Pigeon Pond, in the northern part of the parish, 
was a deep, round, brimming basin, of the purest, 
coldest water. There was good reason for its 
pureness and coldness ; it was fed by springs only, 
from underneath it, — satisfied from itself, as 
Solomon says a good man is. Though there was 
no stream running into it, there was a copious 



DERIVENT. II 

one, large enough for a considerable water- 
power, flowing out of it. Wurts's grist-mill, 
which was one of the " seven wonders " of my 
childhood, was worked by this stream. What 
was singular about this lakelet was, that being on 
high ground, with no hills, or higher grounds, 
sending streams into it, it got nothing from the 
rains except the drops that fell on its bosom ; and 
yet it was always full and out-flowing. Its cir- 
cumference might be half a mile. 

This little water was attractive to me, as all 
waters are to boys ; and I loved it for reasons 
such as a young mind oftener feels than analyzes, 
its beauty, its solitude, its stillness, and the 
images it mirrored, — clouds, birds, overhanging 
treej. And perhaps, also, I had some kindly re- 
gard for the only craft that floated on it, — a 
weather-blackened, oarless old canoe, looking as 
lone as the Ark does in a picture. 

You would find fishes there, too, if you were 
fond of angling ; and they were of the best kjnds 
for the frying-pan, — perch, roach, pickerel, with 
none Of the refuse sorts, such as dace and bull- 
heads. The pond appeared to be full of them. 
My cousin Isaac VValdron and I, half-grown boys 
.hen, coming home that way from our ramblings 



12 ■ D E R [VENT. 

in the woods behind it, after game, sat down 
there to rest and talk, and having our hooks with 
us, soon caught as many as we cared to carry, 
with our birds and squirrels. How came the fish 
to be there ? Curious people often asked and won- 
dered how. No one knew. The Indians could 
not have put them there, they thought, their 
means and habits being what they were. There 
was, however, no great mystery in the case ; some 
curious or thoughtful early settler, brought their 
progenitors from the river in a bucket, and 
colonized them, a little piscatory settlement, in 
the midst .of woods and Indians ; and from that 
it had grown to this. 

The other lake, called Beaver Lake, was in the 
western half of the parish. We called that the 
Lakeside, and the people living there Lakesiders. 
This was a larger water than Pigeon Pond, being 
a mile and a half, or more perhaps, in circumfer- 
ence. There were a few dwellings along its western 
marg-in, looking complacently out on it, and less 
complacently, I should think, across it, on a 
sloping wooded ridge that limited their view, and 
had no compensating beauty. An old chronicler 
says of this " Pond," as he too diminutively 
calls it, that it is " remarkable for its being formed 



DEKWENT. 13 

by a dam, sufficiently wide for a cart-path, which 
was apparently made by beavers." Famous 
builders, truly, are the beavers. There was an- 
other of their structures, on a large brook not far 
from us, which was named the Beaver Mill-Dam, 
some man having once set up a small saw-mill on 
it. The man and mill passed away, and were for- 
gotten, while the beavers' work and name be- 
came permanently connected with the locality. 
I feel some satisfaction in making this record of the 
curious and useful labors both of these and those 
others which made the dam at the foot of the lake. 
An opportune service, this was, for the first settlers 
there ; for the beaver-built causeway which they 
Found ready for them, just separated the lake 
from a swamp of such a character that they 
would have found it difficult, with their means, 
to make a road through it. That swamp, of large 
extent, was filled with cedars, which were so 
thick, and tall, and dark, that it was said you 
could not venture far into it without a compass, 
or a guide, in a cloudy day, but at the risk of not 
finding your way out of it ; and certainly it had 
a labyrinthian look. 

I never passed it without admiring its count- 
less,, lofty, pointed evergreen tops. It is probable 



14 



DER WENT. 



that it was once overflowed by the lake, which 
still discharges itself into it. The lake was the 
great bathing-place of the young men and boys 
of that vicinity. In it grew the longest-stemmed 
pond lilies that I have ever seen, — a fact which a 
boy would be likely to remember. 

Our old highways had some charms that were 
peculiar to them. They were rude and rambling, 
with rarely a level mile, and still less frequently a 
straight one in them, — running amicably along 
brook-sides, following their humors, often crossing 
them on rude timber bridges; asserting their 
right of way through narrow passes between 
rocks and hillocks; chmbing and descending 
hills; damaged by the ever-washing rain, and 
rvidely repaired. And so unstinted in their 
width ! One might think that the object of the 
old proprietors had been to throw as much land 
into the highways as they could, instead of steal- 
ing as much from them as they dared, as some 
people now do. 

Those old, primitive highways ! — there wil 
never be any more such. They are antiques, 
pictures, histories. I see in them the enterprise, 
the labors, the courage, and the large-hearted- 
ness of men making homes for themselves and 



DER WENT. 15 

their posterity in wilds which were pathless and 
sunless till they came. 

In one of them was a mile of road which is 
to me the most interesting that my memory re- 
calls. It is that which took me to and from the 
house of God, and to and from the school, with 
loving sisters and a kind brother for companions. 
It is alive, too, in my retrospect, with the images, 
and merry with the voices, of school-mates and 
play-fellows ; — how many of whom fulfilled their 
short and uneventful day long since, and are 
gone. 

The reader of a book hkes to know something 
of the place to which it takes him, and this 
partial sketch of Derwent has been given with 
reference to such a wish. There are several 
other localities, — Hemlock Ledge, The Crows' 
Rest, The Narrows — to which 1 would invite a 
friend to go with me, if we were in the place ; 
but topographies, often wearisome, are never 
satisfactory. 

The Derwent people were farmers, most of 
them. They lived scattered along the roads, 
with here and there a closer small neighborhood. 



X6 DERWENT. 

The largest of these was at Derwent Head, which 
was, as the name implies, the head of tide-watei 
on the Derwent, and was our business centre. 
There were brought and dropped, in grand con- 
fusion, great piles of timber, cord-wood, plank, 
and whatever the woods furnished for ship-yards 
and the market. Our only factory was the 
" Anchor Works," a great dingy building, or 
system of buildings, in the bottom of a valley 
through which flowed the stream that supplied 
its water-power. It was something of an adven- 
ture, for a young boy, to go down into it, in the 
evening, to see its glowing forges, and wonder 
that the anvil's great showers of sparks did not 
burn the workmen ; and it was a delight to listen 
to its trip-hammer, at a mile's distance, on a still 
morning. The ship-yards afforded us a fine sen- 
sation, now and then, in the sight of a launch. 



1 1. 



OUR HOME. 



OUR HOME was on a small elevated plat, 
facing the river, and somewhat less than a 
mile from it. We thought the house none the 
less respectable for being old and having 
sheltered three generations prior to ours. It 
was open, on its hill-top site, to all wholesome 
airs, and its windows glistened in the morning 
sunbeams while the valleys were yet sleeping in 
the twilight. If you wish to wake to early and 
pleasant thoughts, an elevated sleeping- room, 
with an eastern exposure, is to your purpose. 
Give late sleepers the shady side, with candles 
to make up after bed-time for the better hours 
the)?^ lose in the morning. 

The well, more than forty feet in depth, was 
such as hill and rock necessitated. I suspect 
that my earliest emotions of the subhme were 
experienced at that well. So dark and deep ! t 
dropped pebbles into it — chick ! — to see the water 

(19) 



20 DE R WENT. 

sparkle and note how long the sound was in 
coming up to me, — as a child will. Its apparatus 
for drawing was the crotch, sweep, and pole, the 
oldest and simplest sort of well-gear in New Eng- 
land, as I think it is in all the first-settled parts of 
our coinitry. And perhaps it is the best, if you 
have space and sky-room for it. It keeps the 
well open to the light and air, which is favor- 
able, if not essential, to its pureness, while the 
often-dipped bucket stirs the water and keeps it 
from stagnating. It has a picturesque, as well 
as a historic interest. 

It is peculiarly suggestive. To the traveller 
on a rui'al highway, a well-sweep near a house 
speaks of home and the domestic life more em 
phatically than does any other object. 

Did you ever think of the crotch, sweep, and 
pole as an original contrivance ? When and 
where was it first used ? Tliere is no mention of 
any fixture at all similar to it in the accounts we 
have of ancient wells. The common mode ap- 
pears to have been to draw with a cord and a 
water-pot, or pitcher, of pottery or metal, that 
would dip itself A marble curb, found among 
the ruins of one of Tiberius's villas, and preserved 
m the British Museum, shows marks, around its 



DERIVENT. 21 

edges, of the cords with which they drew. " Sir, 
thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 
deep," said the woman of Samaria to Jesus at 
Jacob's well. She herself, undoubtedly, had 
come provided with a rope, together with her 
water-pot. Solomon speaks of the wheel broken 
at the cistern, from which we should suppose 
that wheels, or windlasses, were more or less in 
use at wells. 

T have not seen the apparatus we are speaking 
of in foreign countries, and I once thought it 
might be an invention of the early settlers of 
America: but it is in fact much older, and has 
been used more extensively, than I supposed. 
In a wood-cut of the date of 1518, belonging to 
an elaborate series entitled " Triumphs of Maxi- 
milian," by Hans Burgmair, a contemporary of 
Albert Durer and his rival in the art of design, 
there is represented a rich embroidered saddle- 
cloth on which is shown a woman drawing water 
by her cottage, from a well with a pole, sweep, 
and bucket, and a rude curb of l<9gs. 

The contrivance, by whomsoever it may have 
been devised, is a thing curious in conception, a? 
well as useful in its working. In drawing water 
with a pole, the trouble was to keep it straight 



22 D E R WENT. 

up and steady in the air, which it was difficult tc 
do if the well was at all deep, or if there was 
wind ; and its weight, too, in addition to that of 
the bucket, had to be lifted at arm's length. You 
wanted a man aloft to help you. But see how 
these inconveniencies arc disposed of by the 
sweep. It takes charge of the pole, lowers and 
raises it perpendicularly, and helps you lift just 
as much as you please to have it, by the weights 
you put upon its lower end. 

And this further may be said for it, that any 
man can set up the crotch, sweep, and pole for 
himself, while in many cases, particularly in re- 
mote or new settlements, other kinds of gear 
cannot be had. 



III. 



FETCHING FIRE 



HALF-WAY between us and the river, on a 
lower plat than ours, lived our nearest 
neighbors, Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Prudden ; their 
houses and farms being on opposite sides of the 
road which ran down past us to the landing. 
The Pruddens were agreeable neighbors and 
good people ; the Crabbes were such as we shall 
see. They were an aged couple, living quite 
alone. Among my very early recollections is 
that of an incident connected with my first visit 
to their house. It may seem trivial; but, as 
young life, regarded as a whole, includes the life 
of the child as well as that of youth, we must 
allow a place to some such memories as this, in a 
few of the pages that are to follow. 

It is a great thing to be a child. For that is to 
be, more than is possible at any maturer age, a 
sight-seer and adventurer. In a world as new to 
him as he is 3'oung in it, the little learner finds him- 

(25) 



26 D E R W E N T. 

self surrounded by curiosities and wonders. 
Every sound, color, shape, and motion, arrests 
him. This is the secret of his dreams and mus- 
ings, and his many questions ; and this, too, ac- 
counts for the distinctness of his subsequent re- 
collections. 

I had run down to the old man's, Mr. Crabbe's, 
with one of 'the maids, on a bright, frosty 
morning, to get some fire. Very strange, 
now, would seem the idea of lending or bor- 
rowing fire ; but as there were no friction 
matches in those days, the practice was to 
keep it on the hearth if possible ; and if it 
chanced to go out,, it might be necessary to 
resort to a neighbor's supply. You imbedded 
in the ashes, over night, some of the brands or 
coals, or, if the family had sat up until these were 
too nearly consumed, you were prepared with a 
bit of seasoned hickory, or other hard wood, to 
rake up with remains enough of fire to ignite it. 
This was a very considerable item of house-keep- 
ing care. It required some tact to make sure of 
success ; for, if you buried your brand too deeply, 
it would be smothered and extinguished ; or, if 
too slightly, it would all burn out and be gone. 



D ER WENT. 27 

It was, in fact, an experiment, and a somewhat 
critical one, to be repeated nightly. If it failed, 
as it often would, so that, in the morning, you 
poked and raked in vain among the ashes for 
your hid treasure of coals, or for so much as a 
spark which your breath might kindle into more, 
or which you could light a match with, then you 
had to strike fire. You went to some shelf, or 
cuddy, and took thence a piece of steel shaped so 
as to be held conveniently, a box or horn of 
tinder, a gun-flint, and a brimstone match ; and 
you were, of course, provided with a candle. 
The spark struck from the steel ignited the 
tinder, the tinder lit the match, the match lit the 
candle, the candle set ablaze the wood, and so, 
behold how great a matter a little fire — a red 
particle of steel — kindled ! 

If you happened to be out of tinder, or of 
matches, you must go, then, to a neighbor's for 
fire ; and a later breakfast and keener appetites 
would be the consequence. So, too, if you 
w^anted a light in the night, you must strike one, 
or find fire on the hearth ; or, these means failing, 
you must go and wake some neighbor for it, — if 
light or fire you must have ; which would some- 
times happen, as in a case of sudden illness. 



28 D ER WENT. 

Vessels at sea, whose tinder became damp, or 
was spent, would be without light in the bin- 
nacle, or fire in the caboose, for the remainder of 
the passage, unless some spoken ship supplied 
them. Crews suffered, and sometimes vessels 
were lost, in these circumstances. 

Such were the ways in which our morning fires 
were set agoing, and our extinct fires renewed ; 
and I have that regard for the steely and flint, and 
tinder-box, that I deem them worthy to be pre- 
served as memorials of the olden time. Of what 
date they are, as an invention, it is beyond history 
to say ; but in old people's memories they are of 
the days of great fire-places, huge " back-logs," 
glowing hearths, dipped candles, and rare incen- 
diarisms. 

We went, as I was saying, Betty and I, after 
fire. The old man was just uncovering a plenti- 
ful store of coals and brands. I remember how 
he looked. Gross and heavy, he seemed a Blue- 
beard in his castle ; for his house was a strong- 
timbered, unfinished, ill-lighted building, and was 
hung with cobwebs. His uncombed coarse gray 
hair stood all ways ; his beard was equally neg- 
lected ; he had shaggy brows, ashy eyes, and a 



D ER WENT. 



29 



huge fungus-like nose ; and from the condition of 
his garments you might have thought he had 
slept in them on a heap of swingHng-tow. These 
were a child's impressions of him, and as I saw 
him then I see him now. The wife was as untidy 
as the husband. 

"Fire?" said the old man, with a crustiness 
that made me step backward ; " why don't folks 
keep fire, and not be runnin' to their neighbors 
after it ? Where 's your tongs ? " 

Betty, not at all disconcerted by his manner, 
said she had not brought any tongs ; a couple of 
chips would do to carry a coal between, if he 
had n't a brand for her. 

" And so you want a part of my wood-pile, to 
make you out, — a couple of my big chips, heh ? 
Go out and get 'em then ; but 1 wish folks would 
fetch their own chips, or th'else their tongs, if 
they must be comin' arter fire." 

" Just a couple of small chips, as big as clam- 
hells, or two bits of bark, will do," said Betty. 
" But there's a nice little brand, there, can't you 
spare me that, Mr. Crabbe ? " 

" Here, take it, then;" and he held out to her, 
in his tongs, not the brand she meant, but another 
so hot that she could not touch it, and he knew 



30 



DER WENT. 



she could not. " Quick ; you're fiUin' the house 
— pff-ff — chuck full of smoke ! " 

" Thank you, Mr. Crabbe ; that '11 do nicely," 
said Betty, with the very perfection of good- 
nature in her tone. " But please let me take 
tongs and all just to get out doors with it, and I 
can manage it then, I guess." And running out 
with it, she dropped it on the ground, and re- 
turned the tongs. Then, getting a piece of turf 
which a cart-wheel had cut up in the yard, she 
wrapped it around one end of the burning stick, 
and so we went smoking homewards. 



IV. 



GOING TO MILL 



FIRST THINGS are memorabilia with us; — 
the first sled, or whistle, for example ; the 
first suit of boy's clothes, (with pockets in them !) ; 
the first day at school; the first sight of the 
ocean ; of a ship ; of a lighthouse ; of a burning 
building. Through repetition, and our growth 
in years, such things cease to interest us as they 
did, yet we always continue to remember them 
as first possessions «r experiences. 

Among my own First Things was a visit to 
the mill. Smith Scofield was going with a grist, 
and as he was starting from the door, the humor 
took my father to put me up behind him. 
" There, John," said he ; "you may go, too, and 
learn the way." 

Smith Scofield was one of our farm-hands. He 
was a tallish young man, had a kindly tenor 
voice, wore light summer working-clothes, and a 
slouched hat. This is all I remember of him. 
3 (33) 



34 DERWENT. 

" As plain as the way to mill," people say. The 
way to Wurts's mill was not plain ; it was hid 
away in the fields. At the end of a mile and a 
half by the highway, you turned right out into a 
wild of bush pastures and remnants of old woods. 
This was a new region to me, Urra nova, and my 
eyes and ears, in passing through it, were those 
of an explorer. 

There were numerous gates and bars to pass 
through here, at each of which Smith would let 
me down by the arm upon the ground, dismount 
himself, lower and put up the bars, or open and 
shut the gate, as the case might be, remount and 
pull me up again into my place ; so that it was 
no small affair for two such travellers to get for- 
ward on such a road, with • grist-laden horse. 
The path was rude and crooked ; it had been 
made only by wheels and hoofs ; but its rudeness 
gave it interest. 

We had proceeded half a mile, perhaps, 
through these fields, following the humor of the 
path, without seeing the mill, when, at length, a 
low rumbling, and a " clack, clack," mingled with 
a dashing sound of water, told us we were near 
it ; and then, passing round a patch of woods that 
had screened it, " There 's the mill," said Smith. 



D ER WENT. 



35 



And there it was ! I was silent, now, till we 
came- to it. It stood at the foot of a narrow 
ravine, the natural outlet of a romantic little 
lake not far behind it, which supplied its working 
power. Regarded as a building merely, it was, 
to be sure, but a weather-beaten bro"wn thing ; 
but attached to it, outside, there was a great 
wheel, revolving very swiftly under a stream of 
water that came pouring down upon it from a 
trough above. Such a wheel ! — its height, its 
huge shaft, its wide rim, its many buckets ! — I 
marvelled how they ever got it up, and upright, 
from the ground, and into its place. 

We went in. Smith was careful to have me 
understand all that was going on there. He 
showed me the whirling stone that did the grind- 
ing betwixt it and a fixed one under it; made me 
notice how it fed itself with grain just so fast as 
it wanted it, and no faster, by hitting the hopper 
and jarring it with its clack, which was a peg 
fixed in the stone, every time it came round 
called my attention to the long revolving sieve, 
the bolter, which sifted the flour from the bran ; 
and to the cog-wheels, fitting into each other; 
and all kept moving and at work by that giant 
wheel outside. All this, with the rumbhng, and 



36 DERWEN T. 

the clacking, and the many bags with grists wait- 
ing to be ground, or to be come for, with their 
owners' names on them, and the flour bedusted 
floor, and the dusty cobwebs, 'and the dusty 
miller, made the inside a curious place, and in- 
terested me a good deal ; but I was soon out 
again, gazing at the great thing of all, the water- 
wheel. It made me dizzy to look up at it. I 
easily imagined it a thing of life ; it seemed as if 
it were shrinking and dodging down from under 
the rude pouring it all the while got upon it, 
while the saucy, tireless water made a frolic of 
its work, letting itself down by the wheel's 
buckets, (which I tried to count, and could not,) 
and laughing and bounding away along its stony 
path. 

I have seen, since that day, some of the most 
famous structures which human hands have built, 
but I can hardly say I have ever seen any that 
quite equalled that tremendous, dizzy, toiling 
overshot wheel. You may smile at this ; but re- 
member it is a child's wonder at which you smile, . 
and that things are great, not by measurement in 
the carpenter's way, by line and rule, but by 
their effect on the beholder. This is the child's 
standard for estimating sublimities and grand- 



DER VV ENT. 37 

eurs ; and we shall find, if we reflect, that we 
take the same on with us to life's end. Whether 
you are three years old, or three-score, nothing 
is great, for you, that does not impress you 
greatly, and nothing is small that does. 

And herein, if they will read it, is a lesson for 
those sedate grown people who wonder at and 
repress the extravagant emotions of children. 



V. 



A STARLIGHT RIDE 



THEY woke me out of the sound sleep of a 
play-wearied boy, a little after the clock in 
the " long room " had struck ten, one evening, 
and told me that my grandmother Woodhouse, 
who had been spending the day with us, and had 
staid later than usual, was going to take me home 
with her. She mounted from the horse-block, 
and they put me up behind her with an abun- 
dance of good-byes and cautions. " Take care, 
and don't fall off, John, — don't get asleep, John." 
Good advice, but perhaps easier to give than to 
follow, with the rocking of a drowsy horse to 
hinder, and only a crupper to hold on by. 

VVe had two long miles to go, — long to me 
by daylight, longer beneath the stars. I had 
been over the same road often, but never at such 
an hour ; and it was so grand to be travelling in 
the night ! 

Night has as many things to see as the day, 

(40 



42 DERWENT. 

and more for the imagination to be busy with. 
Night fashions its own world : it has its own 
creatures, its own colors, shapes and voices, 
its own grandeurs, its own mysteries. How 
many things I saw, heard, felt, and fancied, in 
that ride, which would have been absent in the 
day-time ! The tops of hills faintly lighted from 
the sky, their sides mantled with their own deep 
shadows ; stars riding on their ridges, or going 
down behind them, — these were of the scenery 
of the night. How black the shade was, under 
the trees and rocks ! A grove in a valley looked 
as if it stood in a pond of ink. 

The hour was late, as I have said, when we 
started ; the lights were out in most of the near- 
est houses as we passed them, and by the time we 
reached the little village around the Green, which 
was about mid-way of our distance, there was 
not a candle left. 

All the houses dark. How still the world was 
then ! — as still, it seemed to me, as the sky above 
us. It was not a stillness without a sound : it 
was that deep quiet which renders audible the 
faintest sounds, — the cricket's chirp, the falling 
leaf, — and makes loud sounds louder. I could 
hear the cows by the road-side, chewing their 



DERW ENT. 43 

cuds, with their long breaths between. And how 
loud the brooks were ! We had several of them 
to cross, two large ' ones, with wooden bridges, 
and two or three smaller ones. Each of these 
had its own proper melodies. Every brook has 
as many varieties of sound as there are changes 
in its bed. In one place it murmurs along a 
stony channel ; in another, tumbling over a ledge, 
it gives you the gushings of the waterfall ; in an- 
other, winding through a meadow, it seems to be 
singing itself asleep. The listening ear hears 
these different voices of the stream separately 
and distinctly, as it does the several parts of a 
concert, or a choir, and at the same time is sensi- 
ble of the combined effects of them all. 

I was awake to all sounds. Before a very old 
house which we passed, were two large pines. 
The merest zephyr was breathing through them. 

" I should think they would cut these trees 
down," I said. 

" Why, child?" 

" Because they make such a sighing. I 
should n't think the folks could sleep." 

" Oh, they're used to it, and don't mind it." 

From a clump of trees at a distance there came 
a startling tii-koo, tu-hoo / 



44 DERWENT. 

" What is it, Grandmother?" 

"An owl, my child." 

We rode slowly, the horse jogging on in a 
reverie, — if horses have reveries, — though now 
and then, his mistress, awaking from her own 
abstraction, would quicken him with her whip 
and her chirruping, giving me due notice of the 
movement, lest I should be unseated. A long 
ride it had seemed to me, when we stopped at 
last under the venerable trees that overshadowed 
my grandparents' home. 

Such were the first impressions made on a 
child's imagination by the scenes of night under 
the open sky of the country. 



VI. 

THE BLINDING WOOD. 



FROM the situation of our house, we should 
have had a fine view in front ; but, unfor- 
tunately, right before us, not twenty rods from 
our door, there was a tall old wood which cut off 
our prospect on that side entirely. Its owner 
was that Mr, Crabbe who so grudgingly gave us 
the brand of fire, on the morning when I made 
his acquaintance. His beautiful, but negligently- 
kept farm lay between us and the river. Such a 
blind before our eyes, depriving us of so noble a 
prospect, was not agreeable to us ; we could not 
but wish it were away, or at least, that an open- 
ing might be cut through, to give us a glimpse 
of passing vessels, if no more. But there was no 
help for it ; the case was not one where that com- 
mon-law principle. So use your otvn as not to injure 
another's might be applied ; nor would the old 
man sell us either the land or the wood itself 
Still less would he have been likely to make for 

(47) 



48 DERW EN T. 

US the opening that we desired, either for love or 
money ; — certainly not for love. Not that he had 
not as much love for us as for anybody, but it 
was contrary to his nature to do a kind act ; he 
would have slept the worse for it. " Well," said 
my father, after sounding him a little on the sub- 
ject, " he has a legal right to have it there, and 
since he means to do so, we must not allow him 
the satisfaction of thinking that it frets us." It 
did not fret us ; it was a nuisance, but we did not 
let it disturb our equanimity. You may wish a 
hill away, that obstructs your vision ; but, know- 
ing that the wish is vain, you do not make your- 
self unhappy on account of it. Our neighbor's 
will was as fixed a thing with us as j^our hill is 
with you. 

But the old man died, and his farm passed to 
other hands. We all went to his funeral. It im- 
pressed us as a gloomy one. In what state of mind 
he left the world, I do not know. Nothing was 
said on that subject by the minister. I heard 
nothing of it in the few low words of the neigh- 
bors who were present. It was to be hoped that 
his end was better than his life ; but the memory 
of a man whose reputation while he lived was 
that of the miser and the churl is not blessed, 



D E R W E .V T. 



49 



however he may have died. " His onh^ son and 
heir was an unthrifty man, coarse Hke his father, 
with half a score of boys, the most stalwart and 
bear-like set of fellows we had ever seen. They 
would strip in mid-winter on a field of ice, and 
dive through a hole in it, just for the humor of 
the thing. The probability now was, that we 
should have these for neighbors ; and that would 
be more annoying. to us than the irksome wood. 
Indeed, we might come to like that leafy curtain 
as a kind of screen between us and those roister- 
ing, lawless barbarians. But they staid where 
they had been, and the old house stood vacant. 
■ One day our mother surprised us with the in- 
formation that our grandfather Chester had 
bought the Crabbe farm ! When news comes 
with " starthng unexpectedness," as this did to 
us, w^e want to know particulars ; and if it be 
good news, we wish to be satisfied of the truth 
of it; and being so assured, we like to dwell on 
it with our questions and remarks. What our 
questions to our mother were, on this occasion, 
may be known from her replies. " Yes, all of it, 
quite down to the river." , " Yes, the house too." 
" The trees? We shall see. Perhaps they'll cut 
them down, or some of them ; you must ask your 



50 DERIVE NT. 

grandfather." And the first time he came to 
the house, we were around him at once with 
our petition that he would have a gap cut 
through the old wood, so that we could see the 
river. " I shall do more than that, children," 
he said, " it shall all come down, every tree 
of it." 

The Crabbe farm, while its old owner lived, 
was forbidden ground to us ; we hardly dared to 
cast a glance over its crazy tumble-down fences ; 
but now we ranged and rambled over it at will ; 
we gazed and talked, stood still, ran, clambered, 
peered into unexplored things and places, and 
made all manner of discoveries and observations. 
A look into the stables excited our pity for the 
cattle that had occupied them ; they were floored 
with cold, hard, shapeless slabs of stone, instead 
of warm and comfortable planks. We stood on 
our toes and peeped in at the windows of the 
silent house, almost superstitiously, half expecting 
to be startled by the image or the voice of the 
sour old farmer ; — so difficult it is, for imagina- 
tive young minds, — and not for young minds 
only, — to dispeople a dwelling which death has. 
made vacant. There will be, within it and 
around it, voices, footsteps, shades, — phantoms 



DER WENT. 



51 



and echoes of the past, — which you cannot at 
• once and easily displace. 

Not man}^ days pass, and men come with axes 
to cut down the wood. We boys and girls are 
lookers-on ; and a fine sensation it gives us, to 
see the largest and the tallest of the old trees fall. 
First, they begin to quiver just a little, at their 
tops, as if they felt that their time had come ; 
then they lean, crackle, and go down, with their 
wealth of branches and green leaves, to the 
ground, crushing smaller trees in their way, 
maiming their peers, and breaking their own 
strong limbs. A few onl)^ are spared, for their 
special symmetry, or as shades for cattle in the 
summer heat. 

And now, the view that is opened to us ! The 
beautiful, broad Connecticut, some miles of it, 
above and below ; the boats and vessels on it ; 
the lands between us and the shore ; the country 
on the other side, — these are the larger features 
of the picture, with innumerable smaller ones to 
fill and perfect it. 



VI I. 



Childhood Sans Souci 



IT is the life of the child that we have thus far 
been considering ; we are getting bej'^ond that 
now, to the years of youth. Is the youth as 
happy as the child? Life may be to him as full 
of interest, and more so ; but it is the interest of 
.excitement, rather than enjoyment. Youth is 
restless. It has its ambitious aspirations ; its 
ardent and fickle hopes ; its vague despondencies; 
its suspense between choices and pursuits ; its 
pinings for the unattainable and the unreal ; its 
impatience of the slowness of the years that inter- 
vene between it and the day of majority, beyond 
which lies its land of promise. Is this happiness ? 
It is at least not the bliss of childhood ; which as 
yet is too joyous to know anything of the tossings 
of the teens, — those rapids of the river, that are 
always perilous, and so often wreck an ill-bal- 
lasted boat. 

Still less, if possible, does the child know of 

(55) 



56 DERIVENT. 

those cares that, like a vapor, overhang the later, 
busier years of hfe. Oh ! happy childhood ! 
happy in many things, — in the freshness of its 
perceptions and feelings, — in its innocence, and 
gayety, and beauty, — in the love of which it is 
the object, — but most of all in its blissful ignor- 
ance of care. If for any one thing more than 
any other, and every other, we should desire to 
be children again, it is for this. 

Care is the experience of older people. It 
comes in with responsibilities and years. There 
is a well-known old hotel near one of our fashion- 
able resorts, thronged and famous once, which 
calls itself the Sans Souci. Abundance of wealthy, 
gay, nothing-to-do people resorted to it in the 
days of its glory, chatted in the parlors, lounged 
and dozed in the shades, listened to music, 
promenaded, danced, and made an enviable show 
of that delicious quietude and obliviousness of 
care to which the house invited them ; but who 
were the real sa7is souci people there ? The 
children only. 

What is care? Is it thinking of the number of 
things we have to do, or see to ? Is it a weari- 
ness of an endless round of duties ? It is not that. 
Those are cares ; things which are definable, and 



DERWENT. 57 

may be reasonable, and necessary, and pleasant, 
evert. Care has no plural. It is referable to no 
particular, mentionable cause, or causes. It is a 
certain vague solicitude, or worry of mind, about 
one cannot tell what. It is as undefinable as the 
feeling of loneliness, or superstitious fear in the 
dark. It remains with us after all our duties are 
discharged ; after our perplexities are relieved, 
our fears dissipated. The mother is still conscious 
of it when the last of her domestic items of the 
day has been attended to, and all her happy 
household are asleep ; more conscious of it then 
than she was in the active performance of the 
day's duties. The farmer feels it, though the 
season is propiti(3us, and his crops are doing well ; 
and feels it still when his barns and granaries 
are full. The merchant takes it home with him, 
and to his bed, at night. So does the mechanic. 
What but this does our Saviour refer to when he 
says, Take no thought for the morrow? What 
else does he reprove in Martha, who was careful 
and troubled about many things? A great vari- 
ety of epithets expressive of the general sense 
of its evils have been affixed to it. It is 
"carping," "corroding," "dull," "cankering" 
care. Horace calls it envious, — invida cura^ 



58 



D ER WENT. 



— that will not suffer us to sleep, — dircllit 
somnos. 

Such is care ; and more than all things else, sin 
excepted, it blights human spirits and mars en- 
joyment. It makes leaner figures than want, and 
deeper lines in faces than years and toils. How 
light-hearted is the child, with his freedom from 
this incubus ! How cheerily the little one bounds 
into his welcome bed at night ! How happy he 
wakes ! And through the long hours of the day 
what thought takes he what may, or maj not be, 
on the morrow ? 

Why are we not all, and always, children in 
this respect ? It is because we have not that 
simple faith in our heavenly Father, which the 
child has in an earthly one ; we do not cast all 
our care on Him, who careth for us. 



VIII. 



OUR FARM 



THE worth of a farm is commonly estimated 
by its capabilities for tillage. You ask what 
remunerative crops it will yield. But there is 
one kind of value which it may have, that is 
hardly taken into account, except, probably, by 
the buyer in a depreciative way, — that which 
may be called its sesthetic value. 

There are parts of it, the supposition is, which 
are not available for husbandry, being too wild 
and broken either for planting or for grazing ; 
there is no money to be got from them. But 
they have that kind of worth which pictures 
have ; they are picturesque ; they please the eye, 
improve the taste, and beautify the mind. And 
this is a higher value than any such as can be ex- 
pressed by quantities and numbers ; it meets a 
higher human want. 

No one can doubt that the Creator has special 
regard to our susceptibility of impressions from 

(6i) 



62 DERWEN T. 

natural scenery, in the diversities he has given to 
the earth's surface. He might have made it all 
even, smooth, and cultivable ; but then how 
monotonous and dull it would have been ! Even 
a world that was all garden, whatever floral 
beauties it might have, would be a tiresome one. 
Every lover of the rude and grand in nature feels 
that He has done better for us than that ; and is 
thankful that it is not in human power to change 
what he has done. You rejoice to know that 
the hills are everlasting, — men cannot dig them 
down. You are glad that there are rocks and 
precipices which man cannot blast away, nor 
bury ; that there are rough places which he can- 
not make smooth, and crooked which he cannot 
make straight ; shades that he cannot • scatter ; 
cataracts that he cannot still ; streams that he 
cannot dry up ; lakes and ponds that he cannot 
convert into corn-fields and meadows. In fine, 
you are thankful that the Creator has designed 
the world for our finer feeling, as well as for our 
grosser wants, and for grateful contemplation, as 
well as for the labor of the hands. 

Our farm had, for us, much of this poetic in- 
terest. It comprised great varieties of surfaces 
and soils, and parts of it were rude enough to be 



DERIVENT. 63 

romantic : its landscape views, and especiall}- its 
sunset views, were delightful. It fronted on the 
river; on the north, the Derwent was its bound- 
ary for a short distance, and on the south, the 
Little Derwent as far as that stream went ; for 
the rest, it had highways and by-ways on all 
sides of it, dispensing with the surveyor's stakes 
and stones. A line of four miles would about go 
around it. 

Names are descriptive, as well as historic and 
directive ; and they are as convenient, almost as 
necessary, for farms as for towns. Every field, 
brook, or path has its name, as every street and 
park has, in a city ; or as every room has in a 
house. The following were some of ours : The 
Side Hill ; The Shipley Woods, and Place ; The 
Shady Side ; The Run ; The Under- Ledge ; The 
Cows' Path ; The Sheep's Rock ; The Crows' 
Rest. These were of the western half of the 
tract. The front portion consisted of smooth and 
gentle swells, slopes, flats and meadows, with 
some swamps and marshes. 

I have seen many finely-diversified and valu- 
ble farms, but never one as pleasing to me as was 
that of ours. The reason will easily be guessed ; 
it is not chiefly because it was such as I have 



64 DEE WENT. 

described it, but because it was our farm, and I 
passed my young life on it. In my belief, there 
is greater satisfaction in the ownership of a farm 
than in any other kind of property. For this a 
number of good reasons might be given : I will 
mention but one. It is in the hoi/ie feeling, with 
the liberty you everywhere have upon your 
lands ; for that feeling is wider than the mere 
roof which shelters you, though not wider than 
your home domain. If, in your ramblings, you 
come to a division fence between you and another 
owner, and get over it, you feel that there you 
are a foreigner; and if you fill your hands, or 
pockets, with nuts, or fruit, you are perhaps a 
guilty trespasser. But on your own side, you 
are at home, and may range about, and take 
whatever 3-ou find that pleases you. The high- 
ways are free to you, but that is a vulgar free- 
dom which you share with others. The freedom 
of the farm is different. You may there feel — and 
the view is neither selfish nor extravagant — that 
everything around you — trees, fruits, rocks, 
springs, streams, and the very sunbeams, dews, 
and rain-drops that fall there, — is peculiarly, you 
may almost say exclusively, your own. 



IX. 



FARM AVORK 



EACH of the four seasons brings with it 
its own appropriate work on the farm. If 
some of it is hard, dusty work, the most of it is 
easy and pleasant. If much of it must be done in 
foul weather, the greater part is done in fair. 
There is an agreeable variety in it ; and it is, 
above all other occupations, healthful and cheer- 
ful. 

There is much of it that boys can do as well as 
men. While very young, they can fetch and 
carry light things, take messages about the 
farm, watch birds, and be helpful in various other 
little ways. Growing older, they can drive and 
fetch cattle, go to mill, help at haying, pick up 
apples, fodder cattle, — in a word, can. do such and 
so many things that the farm could hardly get on 
without them. Some of these boy-services shall 
be noticed as we meet with them in the succes- 
sion of the seasons. 

On our New England farms, most of the 

(67) 



68 DERIVENT. 

ploughing, the first work of the spring, is done 
with oxen instead of horses, as it was in ancient 
times. The first we hear of Elisha the prophet 
is that EHjah found him ploughing with twelve 
yoke of oxen before him, and he with the 
twelfth, A clumsy plough, or a tough soil, or both, 
he must have had, to require such a team as that. 
A man ploughing with a single yoke, and they 
well broke to the work, can drive for himself; 
but if there be more than one, he must have a 
driver; and for that a boy is wanted. This work 
of driving is easy enough ; I cannot sa}?^ that it is 
never tedious. It is not active enough for a lad. 
It is slow walking with slow oxen, over pathless 
ground, all day long, or till the piece of work in 
hand is finished. And if your plough-holder 
happens to be one of the thick-headed sort, or 
taciturn, with no talk to entertain you, nor an ear 
to hear you talk, while you stop to allow a breath- 
ing-spell for the cattle, so much the more tire- 
some is the day. I remember sometimes being 
glad, in such circumstances, of the company of 
the crows, and their more beautifully black and 
glossy cousins, the crow blackbirds, and other 
fowls of the air that lit upon our furrows,' look- 
ing for the grubs and insects which the plough 



D E R WEN T. 69 

might have turned up for them. At that season 
of the year, too, there will be cold daj's, and 
damp, chilly winds, that make the slow pace a 
shivering one ; but the plough must not stop, 
like the sluggard's, by reason of the cold ; and 
the manly boy schools himself to be indifferent to 
weather, where duty is concerned. It is a satis- 
faction to him to see a necessary work go on, and 
to think of the crop that is going to grow up 
and flourish, by and by, on the acres they are 
preparing. 

Planting is another work which a boy can do as 
well, though not as fast, as a man ; and a good 
• exercise for his eye it is, to see that he makes the 
rows straight, parallel, and equi-distant. There 
is beaut}^ in that, as well as economy of ground. 
But it takes a farm boy to succeed in it. I have 
seen a field that an inexperienced man had plant- 
ed, which looked as if he had followed the tracks 
of animals that had been driven across it, or as if 
he had scaled clam-shells over the ground, and 
dropped his seed where they fell. His crop came 
up so thick in places that it had not room to 
grow, while in others wide beds of weeds were 
laughing at the awkwardness that had allowed 
them so much liberty. 



JQ DERIVE NT. 

The seasons are so constant and progressive in 
the occupation they bring, that they leave few 
idle da3'S for their co-worker, the husbandman. 
Hoeing follows directly upon planting, and fills up 
most of the interval between that and haying. A 
boy can do something with the hoe ; but a man's 
strength is not too much to use it easily and well. 
There is an expression of many applications, 
which has its origin in the corn-fields, — the 
"Boy's Row." The boy is ambitious to be a 
man, — to be as strong and efficient as men. 
Hence, if you set him at hoeing with them, he 
will do his 'best to finish a row as soon as they. 
But he falls behind. They rally him, and he de- 
fends himself with the plea that his row is harder 
than theirs. " Oh yes, Willie, the boy's row is 
always the hardest." 

A scene in haying is pleasing in a picture ; it 
is not dull in reality. A company of people, 
with their scythes, rakes, and forks, and teams 
loading for the barn, in fine weather, do make a 
cheerful group. It is a boy's work to rake up 
the scatterings which the fork leaves in putting 
the hay upon the carts. This " raking after " 
was a duty to which I was put while quite 
young; and there were things about it which I 



DERWEXT. 71 

specially like to remember One was, that it 
obliged me to mind my work, and be quick and 
stirring. If I stopped to look or listen, the cart 
would get ahead of me, and then I must carry 
my rakings to it. Another thing was the thorough- 
ness and neatness it required. If I left the least 
lock, or litter of hay behind me, they would send 
me to fetch it, even to the farthest corner of the 
lot. Not because of the value of a handful of ha}^ 
though that was something, but because it was 
not tidy farming. A mown meadow should look 
as clean as a swept carpet. Another pleasant 
thing to recollect is the kindness -shown me 
by Hiram Heathcote, one of the best of the farm 
hands, in making my work as easy to me as he 
could. Some of our men would seem not to care 
how much they left or dropped for me to look 
after, when, doing my best, I could just keep 
along with the cart without such heedlessness on 
their part ; but Hiram would take up the heaps 
as clean as he could, scattering little ; and in case 
of a wind blowing the hay about, or if from any 
cause, — a brier in myfinger, suppose, or a parti- 
cle of dust in my eye, — I fell unavoidably be- 
hind, he would snatch my rake and bring me up 
even with my work again. I love to record such 



j2 DE R WEN T. 

kind acts of that good friend of my boyhood, and 
I have no small number of them in my memory. 
From raking I was in time promoted to load- 
ing, which I liked better. It was not unpleasant 
to be riding and rocking up in the air. It re- 
quires some tact to do the work well, — to place 
the hay all round in a secure and shapely form, 
taking care of it as fast as a strong man throws it 
up to you. If that be not done, it may fall off, 
and though mishaps of this kind ought not to 
occur, they sometimes do, with ludicrous effect. 
An old farmer, belonging to the class of univer- 
sal " uncles;" so called b}^ everybody, bought and 
hayed some grass in our meadows, and came 
with his team and man to take it home. They 
loaded it so oddl}^ that our work-people amused 
themselves with it. "What ails your load, Uncle 
John ? How it leans ! It don't look the same 
way that the oxen do. You won't get half-way 
home with it." Uncle John heard these pleas- 
ant observations very composedly, and squinting 
up at his "load, he said, " It leans and skews a 
little to be sure, but it lies very fa am, for all 
that." Walter and I, watching for incident and 
fun, as boys will, followed the ill-balanced pile 
with our C3'es, and before it got out of the mead- 



DER WENT. y-i 

ows, ofifit went down to the cart-ladders, — much 
to the surprise of Uncle John, much to the 
amusement of my brother Walter and myself. 
It was like Walter to make a humorous applica- 
tion of Uncle John's words. If he saw one main- 
taining ridiculous confidence in a thing, he 
would say, " It lies ver}'- fa'am." 

I was once on a high load which Hiram was 
driving along a narrow causeway between a 
ditch and a shallow plash or puddle, which a tide 
had left there, when suddenly one wheel sunk to 
the hub, and turned the load topsy-turvy into 
the water. I had but an instant's time to clam- 
ber to the upper edge of the load, and came 
down o« my feet, I hardly know how, on the 
side of the cart-body. It was a narrow escape 
from being suffocated under a ton of hay. 

Harvesting, too, as well as haying, has its 
scenes for pictures. A field of grain is a beauti- 
ful object at all stages of its growth : it is espe- 
cially so when it is ripe and ready for the sickle. 
You admire its evenness, its thick growth, its 
drooping, richly-burthened heads, and its golden 
color. Contemplated thus, it is a quiet scene : 
in the process of harvesting it becomes a lively 
one, and fitter for the pencil of the artist. 
7 



74 DERWENT. 

Before the introduction of the labor-saving 
machines worked by horses, of which we have so 
great variet}^ in these days, the wheat and rye 
crops were cut in a primitive, slow, and back- 
breaking way, with the sickle. To cut them like 
oats, with the cradle, would shake out and waste 
the grain too much, — all the better for the birds. 
If we were to mow them, hke grass, the scythe 
would throw them confusedly into swaths, which 
would not be convenient for binding. The reap- 
er cuts them by hanclfuls, and lays them even- 
ly in gavels. These are bound in sheaves with 
straw taken from the parcel in hand, or else, 
frugally, with straw of the previous year's gi'owth 
brought from the barn. The sheaves, as they are 
bound, are set upright, and the field is studded 
with them. These are brought together into 
shocks, each shock containing sixteen sheaves, 
and in this form the cart takes them. It may 
seem as if there were no reason for putting just 
that number in each parcel; but it is convenient 
enough to do so, and the amount of the crop is 
t(.)ld in that way, each shock being estimated to 
yield a certain amount by measure, on the barn 
floor. From allusions in the Bible, this way of 
reckoning by shocks would seem to' have been the 



DERWENT. 75 

ancient one, — in use as far back as the time of Job, 
at least : — "Like as a shock of corn cometh in in his 
season." The shock, in those days, may not have 
consisted of exactly the same number as ours ; but 
it would seem as if it must have been of some 
definite number, for a hap-hazard parcel would 
hardly serve for such a simile. 

The slow method of the sickle makes many 
hands necessary, if the field is large. And the 
weather, too, is a circumstance to be regarded. 
Improve the sunshine while you have it, and do 
not lose it for want of men. To-morrow, it may 
be showery ; and grain will not stand wet long, 
without damage. It is a remarkable instance of 
the divine goodness, that, every year, and in all 
lands, the bulk of the cereals is safelv housed in 
barns and granaries under favoring skies, — not- 
withstanding all fears and prognostications to the 
contrary. It is very common for farmers to fore- 
bode bad weather to ruin their crops, in or before 
the harvest season. There is neither religion nor 
reason in this weather-wise grumbling. The 
rainbow itself should shame it into silence. I re- 
member clouds, mists, showers, and dubious 
faces at that season, but I cannot recollect any 
case in which a crop of ours was lost, or mate- 



^6 D ER WENT. 

rially damaged, for want of sun enough to har- 
vest it. 

As 1 stood, one day, on a low hill, an eighth of 
a mile back of a field of rye in which eleven 
reapers were working abreast, their motions and 
appearance reminded me of a string of wild geese 
in the air. I noticed how regularly they all 
stooped, and clipped, and rose together, and 
turned half round as they laid their handfuls in 
the gavels. When they came in at night to enjoy 
the "flowing bowl" of milk punch to which they 
were treated, they made a tired but merry com- 
pany, and not a tipsy one ; for my grandfather, 
their employer, would never hire a drunkard. 

The apple - gathering season, when it came, 
brought us an abundance of occupation Besides 
several large orchards, there were single trees 
scattered everywhere about the lots ; so that, in 
ordinary years, we had eight hundred bushels, or 
more, of apples, all of which were to be picked 
up from the ground, or off" the ti"ees, one by one. 
The most of them fell on clean, smooth sward, 
which made the gathering of them comparatively 
easy ; but, in many cases, they would drop in 
places not so agreeable ; as, for example, a stub- 
ble-field, a thicket of brijrs; or a quagmire. 



DERWENT. yy 

We usually made three circuits of the orchards 
in a season. In the first we gathered such of the 
fruit as was early ripe, or fell prematurely. In 
the middle of the autumn, we took another turn ; 
the bulk of the apples would then be ripe ; the 
around would be cov'ered with them, and the air 
filled with their fragrance. Then, at the final 
round, a little before the frost came, we shook 
the trees, and took all the remaining fruit as we 
went. And by this time it was a satisfaction to 
us to see each one of them thus bereft of the last 
shining apple that hung on it, and to say good-by 
to them for that year, — albeit we had been cheery 
in the work. 

The picking up was for the most part done by 
Hiram, Walter and myself; though we had a 
little help sometimes. 

And I here must record the fact that not un- 
frequently my sisters would be out with their 
baskets, — to their credit and that of our mother 
who permitted them, — to give their brothers wel- 
come aid, and to enjoy, themselves, a specially 
happy, wholesome day. I do not doubt that 
they remember it with pleasure ; and, for myself, 
I can think of them in no circumstances with 
more complacency than in those apple orchards 



78 



DER WENT. 



on a fine, fragrant autumn morning, in their sun- 
bonnets and aprons, — so blithe and active as they 
were, and so generously helpful at a task which 
some mothers' daughters might deem too unfemi- 
nine for such as they. 

The rules which were given us to be observed 
in our orchard work, would be useful in many 
other applications : they were, " Pick clean as 
you go," and " Get them all." It was not well 
to be running about with 3'our basket under a 
tree, picking up the thickest, here and there, and 
have the same ground to go over again ; nor to 
leave an apple ungathered because it had fallen 
where it was not agreeable to get it, or because 
it hung inconveniently high, or because it was 
but one. The apple itself was worth little, but 
the habits of frugality and thoroughness have 
a value which we were not allowed to disre- 
gard. 

The winter was sacred to books and schools. 
Not much work was expected of the boys; still, 
there were certain "chores" for them to do, at 
all times ; and when the snow came, with its 
welcome opportunities for sport, it also gave 
them more or less wholesome labor in clearing 
such places as were encumbered by it. Some- 



D ER WENT. 79 

times, that task was not a very light one. Yet 
the snow was always exhilarating and delightful 
to us. We were much interested in hearing our 
grandparents speak of what their parents had 
witnessed when in their teens, — the Great Snow, 
as it was called, of 1717. This is what a chroni- 
cler who wrote about fifty years ago, says of it : — 
"On the 17th of February, 1717, the greatest 
snow fell ever known in this country, attended 
by a dreadful tempest. This has been related by 
fathers to sons ever since, and is still referred to 
as the Great Snow. It covered the doors of 
houses, so that the inhabitants were obliged to 
get out at the chamber windows, and buried and 
destroyed many sheep." Another account of it 
says, with a rather singular latitude of figures, 
" The snow in some places was between six and 
fourteen feet deep : " which is equivalent to saying 
that it fell unevenly, in drifts and shallows, as of 
course it must have done, being accompanied 
with a " dreadful tempest." Our impressions of 
that storm, received in the way I have mentioned, 
were vivid. We thought it grand : we almost 
wished we might have another such ; provided 
that the poor sheep should be snugly housed in 
advance of it. Only to think of putting your sled 



8o DERWENT. 

out of the chamber window, and sliding down 
the great drift into the valley below ! 

Having digressed into this subject of snows, I 
Avill mention that there occurred another famous 
one in the year 1798, which comes, though barely, 
within my own memory. I can recollect how 
blank the country looked, with all signs of roads 
and fences obliterated, trees buried up to their 
lower branches, and no moving creature visi'ble, 
except now and then a starved crow flying over- 
head. 

Wood was our only fuel ; and as we burnt it 
freely in the old-fashioned way, in fire-places, 
there was much of it to be cut at the door. Such 
piles as we had in our yard at the coming on of 
winter, would be a marvel in these days. Walter 
and I began at cutting, as soon as we could 
swing a small axe. We called' it work, but in 
effect it was a pastime ; there was so much 
physical enjoyment in that kind of exercise. 
I know of none that is better ; and always, 
to this day, I have worked up my own wood, 
with axe and beetle and wedges, purely for the 
healthfulness and pleasure of it. Indeed I 
have often bought a load more for the sake of 
cutting it up than because I needed it. The 



DER WENT. 8l 

same was my brother's habit, as long as he 
lived. 

There is no kind of life that brings all the 
muscles of the body into use and exercise like 
the farmer's. There are some occupations that 
keep one always sitting ; others constantly re- 
quire a standing position ; some employ the 
hands only, and others the legs. Many are the 
inst!inces one meets with, in both sexes, of partial 
and defective development through partial and 
defective exercise. But the farm brings the 
whole of the body into activity, and employs it 
for a conscious purpose ; for an object. There 
is no gymnasium comparable to it in this respect. 
We see, in these times, a variety of g3'mnasia for 
colleges, for young ladies' seminaries, for remedial 
institutions : they are all, at best, only tolerable 
substitutes for something better, where that can- 
not be had. They may answer for a few athletes, 
who do not need them, but I deprecate an in- 
discriminate, compulsory use of them for young 
human frames, and for invalids. 



X. 



FETCHING COWS 



D 



RIVING and fetching the cows was a serv 



ice to which I was put very early, perhaps 
at eight years of age. I have no cause to regret 
the charge ; it involved more benefits than hard- 
ships. It roused me in good season in the morn- 
ing, for one thing. Charles Lamb holds it to be 
a "popular fallacy" that "we should rise with 
the lark, and lie down with the lamb." He will 
have a plenty of people to agree with him, slug- 
gish souls, as well as some philosophers and doc- 
tors ; but for myself I prefer the old adage, and 
shall never be sorry that I rose, if not with the lark, 
at least with the cows. The duty was assigned to 
me alone, my brother being excused from it by 
general consent ; for what reason I cannot say, 
unless it was because he was by two years ray 
senior, and that the way of the world was, and is, 
to devolve a variety of minor services and charges 
upon the younger rather than the elder boy. 

• (85) 



36 DERIVE NT. 

I had not far to go, the nearest corner of the 
pasture, where the cows were let into it, being 
not more than an eighth of a mile from the 
house : it was a different affair to find and fetch 
them home at night ; for they had a wide range 
to roam in. My first trouble in the morning, 
and also the last at night, was with the bars ; 
they were too heavy and too high for me to let 
down and put up. I well remember how I lift- 
ed, tugged, and staggered under them to get 
them into their places. My father, observing 
this, had them replaced with lighter ones. I 
used to wonder at my grandfather, that, in pass- 
ing through bars, he would let down two or 
three of the upper ones, when it was so much 
easier to climb over them ; not appreciating, then 
the difference which years make in the ways of 
people. 

The tract where the cows were pastured com- 
prised, I think, about two hundred acres. There 
were a few cross-fences on it, but the bars to 
these were generally let down, so that the cows 
had the freedom of the whole, — they and the 
sheep. The oxen were sometimes turned in 
there, too, but for these more luxuriant pastures 
were reserved, because, besides their being re- 



DERWEN T. 



87 



garded as of a somewhat dignified order of 
cattle, they had less time for feeding than the 
others, in consequence of their labors in the 
yoke. The young cattle, — weaned calves and 
yearlings, — were sent away for the summer 
to some outlying lands, two miles away ; and 
a pleasant season they had of it there, with 
shades, and brooks, and abundance of sweet 
feed, and nothing to do but enjoy them- 
selves. Very sleek they looked, and glad to 
see us, when we paid them a visit, now and 
then, to carry them salt, and see how they 
thrived. 

The topography of the cows' range would re- 
quire minute details to do it justice : I will only 
say, in general, that most of it was elevated and 
uneven, that parts of it were charmingly rude 
and wild, and that there were points on it from 
which you had extensive and pleasing prospects, 
— which prospects often held me lingering and 
looking longer than my time conveniently al- 
lowed. Some glimpses of its features may be 
got from the account I am here to give of one 
of my excursions through the middle of it, look- 
ing for the cows. 

Entering at the bars, 1 may go up the face of 



88 DEKWENT. 

the hill which forms the foreground of the tract, 
and along southward on its ridge, — which lays 
the river scenery open to me on my left, — or, 
instead of ascending the hill, I may wind round 
the northern base of it, rising as I go, till I find 
myself in a green run behind it. Not seeing the 
objects of my search there, I pass on through a 
grand old grove of chestnuts, and come into a 
small park-like opening of three or four acres, 
between woods ; which we will call the Little 
Pai-k. Here you will find sassafras ; and the 
sumac, the acid of whose ripe red berries is 
rather agreeable ; and blackberries, in the season 
of them, in great abundance, variety and excel- 
lence ; and hazel-nuts — and nig]Lt-hazvks,—\i\\\Q\v 
will give you little pleasure, unless you hold 
them in better esteem than I do. They appear 
to have made this their special haunt and play- 
ground. The air will be full of them at night- 
fall. I dislike their barbarous note, unpleasing 
enough when heard alone, but a perfect jargon 
in the air where a good many of them are " scoot- 
ing" about together. I dislike their ways and 
manners more. They have a foolish habit of 
diving straight down, from a great height, al- 
most to the ground, and mounting again, making 



DERWENT. 89 

a loud, hollow sound with the swiftness of their 
descent; and sometimes they come swooping- 
down at me in that way, almost touching my 
hat, and startling me prodigiously for the in- 
stant; for the place and the hour are lonely. I 
might think they meant it for just a frolicsome 
salutation, a joke and nothing more ; but I wish 
them all dead, or banished. 

The truth was, they had no reference to Master 
John Chester at all, in their divings ; they were 
after flies or bugs ; and if they saw one about 
John's hat, they did not mind stooping for it 
there. Very likely he himself would have started 
it up for them. 

Pausing here in Little Park, to make up my 
mind in what direction to continue my search, I 
decide, suppose, to keep on through the Shipley 
Woods, so called, before me. They are thick 
and dark. There is only a foot-path through 
them, narrow, crooked, overhung with limbs of 
trees and bushes, and scarcely traceable for the 
dry leaves that cover it. In these woods I am a 
long way from any house. It is always a rehef 
to me to get out of them, at night, going either 
way, but especially going homeward. 

Emerging from these dark and tangled acres 



go DERWENT. 

into the brighter world on their southwesterly 
side, a short distance further brings me to the 
" Shipley Place." Who or what Mr. Shipley 
was, no one hereabouts, that I have asked, can 
tell me. He was probably one of the original 
proprietaries of the town of Derwent ; but his 
race and name are unknown in it now. Here are 
a few acres of smooth, rich, cultivable soil. There 
is a domestic ruin on the place ; — a cellar, half 
filled with its own dilapidated wall and with 
fallen portions of the chimney that rises out of 
it ; a well, bucketless, of course ; — the relics of a 
family ; objects such as are • always interesting, 
being memorial and suggestive. There are a 
number of very old apple-trees ; two of which 
are the largest I ever saw, and great bearers still, 
and of very fine varieties of fruit. There is an 
old cherry-tree, too, producing an abundance of 
English sour reds, and climbablc for Walter and 
me ; on which we fill our stomachs and pockets, 
when the cherries are ripe, we think, — or almost 
ripe, at any rate. 

The cows, when found, are glad to see me ; for 
they need the relief of milking. They move as 
soon as they are spoken to. They know the 
way. They take the path I came by, and keep 



DER WE NT . 



91 



right on, in single file, without going aside or 
stopping. What a rustling they make,— there 
are ten of them, — wading in the leaves through 
the woods ! I wish the leaves away ; for I like 
the stillness of woods along with their wildness, 
that being a part of their poetry ; and then I 
want to be able to hear what may be heard in 
such a place, and at such an hour ; — the fluttering 
of a wing, the hum of a beetle, the footsteps, per- 
chance, of some dog traversing the woods, — 
slight sounds that indicate an all-surrounding 
stillness, and assure me of my safety in it. But 
nothing can I hear for the leaves under the 
cattle's feet. 

I very often found them nearer home than in 
this imaginary case which I have described ; 
sometimes they would be at the bars, waiting 
for me ; but this was only when they had calves. 
Not unfrequently, however, I would have to 
look far and wide, and long and late, for them, — 
so that the people at home would wonder what 
had become of me, and begin to be uneasy. Tired 
and worried with one of these long searches, one 
night, I stopped and stood still, in a bushy place, 
thinking where to look further, — wishing the 



g2 DERWEN T. 

whip-poor-wills would be quiet — when I was at 
once startled and gladdened by the sly voice of 
Hiram Heathcote, — for he had a way oi ap- 
proaching you stealthily, and surprising you with 
his sharp, sudden, almost whisper, from a dis- 
tance. " Can't find 'em ? " " No." " Where 
have you looked?" "Everywhere." "In such 
a place?" "Yes." "And in such, and such, 
and such ? " " Yes, in all those places." " You've 
gone dreaming by 'em, with your eyes shut, 
somewhere. Come." And, seizing my hand, he 
strode on with me, through bush and brake, and 
up and down, almost swinging me along the 
ground, till the truant beasts were found. Never 
did a tired, disheartened boy get so welcome a 
lift as that. 

I do not recollect ever giving over the pursuit 
and going home without the animals, except in 
one instance ; and then, though it was quite night, 
my father sent me back to look again. They 
were in a different pasture, that day, from the 
one which I have described, and had hid them- 
selves in a most unwonted place. I had to wade 
throuofh water to sret to them. 



&^ 



There is no sunny side in life without a shad}'' 



DER WENT. 93 

side to match it ; nor any shady one without a 
sunny, if the heart be right. I might make up a 
chapter of disagreeables on this cow-driving his- 
tory of mine, as any complainer can on almost 
any subject or occasion, if he will. To be waked 
before you have had your sleep out, — to wet 
your shoes, and drabble your trowsers, in the 
grass, while the dew is on it, — to be overtaken 
with solitude and night in lone fields a long way 
from home, — to have to traverse, after dark, thick 
woods made more dismal by fire-flies, owls, 
croaking frogs, and other creatures of the night ; — 
to be looking everywhere for animals that are 
" nowhere," like Saul's lost asses, — to be out un- 
avoidably in drenching rains, or terrific thunder- 
storms, — these and the like things, of actual 
occurrence, together with such bugbears as 
might be conjured up besides, would be material 
enough for the chapter in question. But the 
benefits and pleasures of the service were far 
more than the care and labor. As a part of my 
early training, physical and mental, it was better 
to me than so much time at books and schools. 
Nor could I have well spared it from my recrea- 
tions. Those cow-fetchings were agreeable ex- 
cursions, pleasant rambles; and they were the 



p4 DERIVE NT. 

pleasanter because there was an object, a use- 
ful end connected with them ; for a walk 
without an object, like life without an aim, 
is but tedious. They afforded occasion for 
solitary gazings and musings ; and the soli- 
tary musings of a child, or a youth, when the 
objects of his contemplation are harmless and 
suggestive, as mine were on the hill-tops, and in 
the woods and open fields, are no idle waste of 
time ; they contribute to the lasting furniture, 
the cherished treasures, of the mind. I was in 
the way, too, in these excursions, of learning 
divers things which books do not teach us : — the 
trees of the wood ; the wild flowers and shrubs; 
plants unknown to cultivation, and of what use 
they are medicinally ; lights and shades ; shapes 
and forms ; and many things. But I am indebted 
to the service most of all, perhaps, for the exer- 
cise it gave in some important habits, and par- 
ticularly in those of constancy and perseverance. 
To drive and fetch the cattle every day, at season- 
able hours, reliably, no one bidding or reminding 
me, — that was the constancy. To look for them 
till I found them, wherever they might be, or 
whatever the weather, or the hour, — that was the 
perseverance. I have mentioned the instance in 



D E R WENT. 95 

which my father sent me back to look again, and 
to look till they were found. He was right in 
doing so, though it seemed hard at the time ; for 
the habit of a life, a strong character or a weak 
one, success or failure in business, and, indeed, 
the salvation of the soul itself, probably, has often 
turned on a single act of persevering or giving 

UD. 



XI. 



Our Derwent School. 



SCHOOLS have a large place in early mem- 
ories ; and I think our primary ones leave 
more distinct and abiding impressions with us 
than those we attend in our later youth. 

The first seminary at which it was m)?- privilege 
to be a pupil, was the district school. The 
school-house, a low, unpainted building, was on 
a corner of the green, and near the meeting- 
house. It had an old look, and was, I believe, as 
old as the parish itself. Time and the weather 
had made it very gray, and had rcbbed it of por- 
tions of its covering ; and no repairs were made 
on it, because there was talk of building a new 
one. In its huge fire-place, fires large enough, 
you might think, to roast an ox, were made. 
And they did roast the children that were seated 
nearest them, — to balance which, the remotest 
ones would be freezing, on a cold day. It was, 
in fact, a house of three zones, the middle being 

(99) 



TOO 



DE R WE N T. 



the temperate one ; the three comprizing various 
degrees of heat, warmth, and cold, sufficient to 
have made it generally comfortable, provided 
these several temperatures could have been 
equalized in one. 

There was a scene outside, one day, which 
always comes to me among my reminiscences of 
that old school-house, and which I shall describe 
here, not as a school incident, nor for the reader's 
entertainment, but as characteristic of those 
times. It is well to know what has been, since 
the past has lessons for the future. We were 
arrested in our studies by a drum coming to- 
wards us across the Green. We were not aware 
v,^hat it meant, as our raised heads and inquiring 
looks would have told you : for that was not a 
training day, nor was the drum beaten in a 
martial way, musically, but was pounded on by 
an unpracticed hand, without its usual accom- 
paniment, the fife. The teacher explained to us 
that a man was going to be whipped at the 
whipping-post, for something he had done ; he 
believed it was for stealing ; and said we might 
go out and see. We all went. The whipping- 
post was but a few rods off. The officer in charge 



DERWENT. lOi 

of the affair was attended by a number of gentle- 
men, and a few boys ; the gentlemen being pres- 
ent to give moral effect to the castigation, and 
the boys, of course, from curiosity and excite- 
ment. As for us of the school, we stood, a 
nervous, shrinking group of lookers-on, in the 
shadow of the house, — for the most of us were 
very young, as it was the summer term, when 
few of the older scholars were in attendance. The 
culprit, who was a stranger in the place, a vaga- 
bond apparently, was a strongly built, youngish 
man, of medium height, with a hard, ugly face, 
we fancied. A sunny one it hardly could have 
been, in his circumstances. He was made 
to strip himself to the waist, and was then tied to 
the post, and flogged with a common horsewhip. 
The strokes were not many, but they were well 
laid on, and forced from him some cries of pain 
that we heard above the drum. The business 
being through with, he was let go, the object of 
a two-fold pity, — for his guilt and for his punish- 
ment, — and was not seen again in Derwent. 
But what a spectacle it was, to turn out a young 
school to look at ! 

Every town had its whipping-post, in those 
days ; nor had stocks wholly disappeared. They 



102 DER WENT. 

Avere not often used, but they might be, and some- 
times were, as we have seen, and they were 
standing caveats to rogues. 

We are sent to school to study what is taught 
in books ; but we do more than that ; we study 
our schoohnates, and are learners of human 
nature. Children, in their talk and play among 
themselves, are undisguised. Any school is 
favorable to this kind of study, but none equally 
so with the common school ; for there is none 
that brings together so great a diversity of minds 
and manners, and from so great a diversity of 
homes ;— of these last alone it might suffice to 
speak, in such a connection, for as the homes are, 
the children are. This so early and intimate 
acquaintance with human kind is one of the 
principal benefits of attendance at these unselect 
seminaries of the districts. The knowledge thus 
acquired does not, as some may think, cease to 
be true and reliable as we grow older : it is as 
lasting as are the identities of the objects of it. 
Looking back to what people were in their child- 
hood and early youth, you perceive that they 
are still the same in later life. The man does 
justice to the boy, and the woman to the girl. 



DER WENT. 103 

Their maturer education, and the discipline of 
circumstances, may have modified them more or 
less, but these have not remodeled them, have 
not changed, essentially, their mental and moral 
characteristics. They show the same tempers, 
dispositions, manners, which you remember of 
them at school, on the play-grounds, and at their 
homes. 

The studies of the common school, especially 
the primary ones, are so rudimental and simple, 
that they are apt to be regarded as the easiest of 
all book learning ; whereas, probably, because the 
learners are beginners, they are the hardest. It is 
no small achievement to master the speUing-book 
alone. But let us see. The first thing is the 
Alphabet. What is the Alphabet? It is a 
column or a line of characters, twenty-six in 
number, duplicated, showing the small with the 
large; and quadruplicated, if you count in the 
Italics, — as many, all together, as a flock of wild 
geese, and flying about as high, in the child's 
apprehension. One hundred and four, all told, 
to say nothing of " and-by-itself-and," and the 
double letters. All these are to be mastered by 
the merest force of will. They have no meanings 
to assist the memory, no pleasing colors, no 



104 



DER WENT. 



attractive forms, no helping accompaniments of 
any kind ; they are mere shapes to be named and 
remembered. No two of them are alike, ex- 
actly ; yet some of them are so perplexingly simi- 
lar as to have originated that familiar caution, 
" Mind your /'s and ^'s ;" which might as well 
have been your ^'s and ^'s ; for these require as 
sharp an eye as those. 

And yet, poor child ! the mother wonders that 
he should be so long in learning his letters. A 
whole summer at school, or two or more sum- 
mers, even, and he does not know them yet! 
And perhaps she chides him, or blames his 
teacher. Well, I propose that she set herself to 
learn some other alphabet, say the Ethiopic, or 
the Arabic, no more strange and barbarous to 
her than ours is to the child, and see how easily 
and quickly she will get it. And, to facilitate 
the learning, I would have her do it in a noisy 
school-room, at the point of a pen-knife, reading 
twice, or four times a day, with tiresome, vacant 
hours between. Such is her little man's task, ex- 
actly. 

And here let a protest be entered against send- 
ing these scholars in the alphabet to school, — if 
there be any help for it, as in some cases, mostly 



DER WENT. 105 

Celtic ones, there may not be. How can a moth- 
er that loves her child, and can read herself, be 
willing to subject her little one to so many te- 
dious sittings and dull readings as he must suffer, 
with his A, B, C, there, when she might make 
his acquisition of it more a pastime than a task 
at home ? 

I have spoken of the barrenness of these alpha- 
betical readings. That is not all the trouble. 
Like every other study, they require attention 
and an effort to remember; and the power of 
fixing the attention, and the retentiveness of the 
memory, depend on discipline. But, with the 
learner of the alphabet, this is the first instance 
of such an exercise in the way of an imposed 
study. Hence, how easily he is diverted, and 
how easily he forgets. " Look on, my child, look 
on the book. Never mind the fly, the wind, the 
shadow." But how impossible is such abstrac- 
tion ! You might as reasonably, and about as 
effectually, command away the objects that di 
vert him : begone, wind, shadow, motion. 

These remarks are applicable, with diminish- 
ing force, to all succeeding studies, — spelling, 
reading, arithmetic, grammar, and the rest. With 
diminishing force, not because the studies them- 



I06 DERWENT. 

selves are easier, but because of the student's in- 
creasing power, through habit, of abstraction and 
attention. 

Go into the district school, and observe that 
class at study. The book is the Spelling Book ; 
the lesson a table of words. They are evidently 
intent on it. The girls bend over it with knit 
brows, repeating the words mentally, or in low 
whispers, to themselves, as their moving lips 
show. The boys manifest a like abstraction, 
without the moving lips, and in such attitudes as 
they incline to take : boys being girls in nothing. 
They are going over the words again and again, 
and many times ; and this they must do, to be 
perfect in them. It is no short work, or light 
task, to get a correct and tolerably extensive 
knowledge of orthography. Words are many, 
and, in many cases, are capriciously formed, with 
no analogy, or law, to tell us how they must be 
spelled, except the bare authority of usage. 
Those between the covers of the dictionary are 
many thousands, and those in common, daily use 
are not few. Evidence of the exactness, the deli- 
cacy, the niceness, of orthographic knowledge, 
as well as the time requisite to the attainment 



DERWENT. 107 

of it, we have in the fact that so few, compara- 
tively, even of those whom we call well-educated 
people, are thorough in it. Dr. Noah Webster 
once remarked to me, that "only editors and 
printers spell correctly." But editors and print- 
ers are not always faultless in this respect. I 
have just laid down an English book, of recent 
date and of wide celebrity, in which there are 
several orthographic errors ; and they appear, 
quite too frequently, in very respectable books 
and editorials in our own country. 

Now I suspect that the district schools make 
more good spellers than most other seminaries 
do. I am persuaded that the method they adopt, 
that of drilling the learners in classes, is the best, 
and that there is no book so proper for the busi- 
ness as the Spelling-Book. In such an exercise, 
the ear helps; mistakes made and corrected 
have an effect like that of discussion and revi- 
sion, and if "going above" be practiced, emula- 
tion stimulates. 

Orthography has so much to do with every 
kind of writing, and every kind of business, and 
with personal respectability, that it is quite an 
infelicity to have passed one's school-days with- 
out acquiring a thorough and familiar knowl- 



I08 DERWENT. 

edge of it ; for this is not often attained after- 
wards. A man may write a bad hand, as bad as 
that of a lawyer's brief, and still be a gentleman, 
or a scholar; but if he misspells, that fact shows 
him to be a man of defective early education, or 
else negligent and slovenly in his literary tastes 
and habits. That letter from your lady friend 
may be beautifully written, and its sentiments 
may be fine ; but how oddly a particular word 
in it strikes you ! It is so out of shape (for words 
have shapes), that you do not at once make it 
out. And you say, what a pity she were not less 
accomplished in her dancing, in her music, even, 
so she were more correct in her spelling. It has 
not seldom happened that an important legal 
document, a will, for instance, has been made 
void by the equivocal meaning of a misspelt 
word. The bad speller not only miswrites his 
own thought, but may misconceive the meaning 
of another's writing. An illiterate preacher took 
for his text. Write, Blessed are the dead zuliich die 
in the Lord; and drew from it the docti'ine that 
there is " a right blessedness, and a zvrong bless- 
edness." Had he been exercised, as he would 
have been in any district-school, in words of like 
sound with unlike meanings, — write, to use a pen, 



DE R WENT. 109 

rigJit, the opposite of wrong ; rigJit, in distinction 
from left; rite, a ceremony; zvright, a workman, 
— he would not have spoiled a solemn text, and 
made himself ridiculous. 

Good or bad habits in the pronunciation, as 
well as the use of words, are formed much more 
by home teaching than they can be by that of 
the school. There are sounds in every language, 
probably, which children, in their first attempts 
to talk, find it difficult to articulate. In most 
cases, they correct the fault early, but not in all 
cases. I knew a brilliant young man in college, 
afterwards lieutenant-gov^ernor of his State, who 
substituted L for R, like the Japanese in their 
attempts to speak English. Through all his 
schools, in spite of all his teachers of elocution, 
the defect had cleaved to him. In conversation, 
in debate, in reading, he would cast out every r 
and thrust an / into its place, — apparently with- 
out embarrassment, and certainly with the natu- 
ralness and force of early habit. He made queer 
work with words and names. What book are 
you leading ? Am I light, or am I long ? Often 
a stranger introduced by him would be embar- 
rassed or amused by the alias that would be 
o-iven him. 



110 DERWENT. 

These cases of adult mispronunciation are not 
attributable to any defects in the vocal organs, 
but to early training. The family and friends 
amused themselves with the child's way of speak- 
ing, encouraged and kept him in it, themselves 
pronouncing as he did, perhaps, in their talks 
with him, till it became so fixed a habit that he 
could not drop it ; for of all learning, the unlearn- 
ing of our early mispronunciation of words is 
about the most difficult. 

Let me, then, put in a plea here in behalf of 
infant learners of their mother tongue. They 
have to get it wholly by the ear. They cannot 
go to the dictionary to know how a word should 
be pronounced. They cannot ask us to spell it 
for them, as we cannot ask an illiterate foreigner 
to spell a name which he does not give us intelli- 
gibly. They must talk as they hear others, or as 
they are themselves allowed to talk, be it well or 
ill. If we would secure a correct and graceful 
use of words in them, such must be our use of 
words with them. A mother expressed her ad- 
miration of the select and refined language of the 
children of a certain family. " Why should they 
not use such language ? they hear no other," was 
the reply. They did but what the children of 



DERIVE NT. HI 

the rudest family do : they spoke the language 
of the house. 

Whoever recollects his first endeavors with 
the pen at school, will remember some foolscap 
pages of very crooked " straight marks." They 
were supposed to be parallel, as well as straight ; 
biit they stood all ways, looking like a field of 
hop-poles over which a whirlwind had passed. 
After these, there are essays at curves, or turns, 
and hair-strokes ; which turns resemble broken 
rims of cart-wheels, and the hair-strokes, sailors' 
rope-yarns. Out of these unpromising beginnings 
there comes, slowly, first a legible, then a re- 
spectable, and eventually, it may be hoped, a 
beautiful autography. This last attainment, how- 
ever, is but rare. The pen is a difficult instru- 
ment to manage dextrously — more difficult than 
any tool of the hand craftsman. In fact, penman- 
ship is a mechanical art ; the learner is an ap- 
prentice to it ; and I am not sure that it does not 
require a mechanical genius to become an expert 
in it. The best penman in our Derwent School 
was the best whittler in it. 

The method of teaching was, to make us 
practise first at a coarse hand ; then at one half 
as large ; and, lastly, we might try at a fine hand. 



112 D ER WENT. 

The fine, consequently, was regarded as the test 
and show of excellence. This consideration, to- 
gether with the notion that girls must write a 
smaller hand than boys, that being one of the 
proprieties of sex, made the girls ambitious to 
write a very fine one. In this way it was, that 
my sister Alice formed what I have always called 
her mustard-seed hand. Her letters still come to 
me in lines so delicate that rows of mustard-seeds 
dropped on them would hide them ; — quite in 
contrast with the large free hand which many 
ladies now use. I like to see it, both because it 
is hers, and because it tells me that her almost 
eighty years have not dimmed her vision. 

It is interesting to note the progress of im- 
provement in small things as well as in great. 
We ruled our own paper : it did not come to us 
blue-lined from the manufacturer as it now does. 
Conscquentl}^ a ruler and a plummet were a part 
of our equipment for school. 

Indecorums in the school-room were of course 
subject to the teacher's notice and correction ; 
but he also had cognizance, to some extent, of 
the manners of his scholars outside the house ; 
and not only around it, but on their way to and 



4 



DER WENT . 



113 



from it. I have in mind here a civility which all 
well brought-up children were expected to ob- 
serve. They were to show respect to elderly 
people and to strangers, when they met them on 
the road, the boys by taking off their hats and 
bowing, and the girls by dropping a courtesy. 
For an omission of this duty, school-going chil- 
dren were liable to be reported to the master ; and 
sometimes were reported, by some little tell-tale 
lover of mischief, or some unfledged future moral 
reformer. " Please, Sir, Charley Cricket didn't 
make a bow to the man ; " or " Fanny Bluebird 
didn't make a curchy." 

I suspect that this was an old Teutonic cus- 
tom, — older than Puritan New England, for you 
meet with it in parts of Germany, if not ever}^- 
where among the German peasantry, not only 
youths, but adults Hfting the hat as they pass you. 
We might regret its discontinuance with us as 
a token of respect to seniors and strangers, so 
amiable in youth ; but its observance now would 
be out of harmony with the spirit of our Young 
America. 

One scarcely knows of a more interesting sight 
than that of a lovely young school commencing 
8 



114 



DER WENT. 



the duties of the day with appropriate religious 
exercises. There is a brief reading of scripture 
by one or more of the older classes, and then, 
their heads reverently bowed, and the room hush, 
there is a prayer so simple, appropriate and fer- 
vent, that every bosom makes it its own. In 
that school you may look for order, diligence 
and improvement, and strong mutual attach- 
ments. But religion is a delicate thing in the 
school-room. The prayer may weary by its 
length, or. chill by its coldness, or shock by its 
hypocrisy : and they are young and sensitive 
spirits that are to be affected by it. Instances of 
such heartless performances, it pains me to re- 
member; and one especially — droning, wordy, 
long, repetitional, and every day the same. One 
of the boys declared that a certain expression in 
it occurred, by actual count of his, thirty-six 
times, — a statement which was probably not far 
from the truth. The man made no profession of 
religion, but prayed by request of the school 
committee, using a written form. 

It is matter of history that the Assembly's 
Catechism used to be taught or recited, in our 
public schools. I am glad that it is only history 



DEE WENT. 115 

now, and not a living custom. I say this with- 
out the slightest disrespect to the memory of 
the fathers : few appreciate them more than I 
do. 

The Shorter Catechism, it was called. Than 
what it was shorter, I did not know, not having 
seen or heard of the Larger ; but with what 
propriety it could be called short, positively, 
with its one hundred and seven questions to be 
asked and answered, I could not understand. 
Saturday was the day for "saying " it; and very 
tedious was that catechism hour. All the custom- 
ary lessons of the school were previously gone 
through with, as on other days. Then, putting 
books and slates aside, we turned and sat in 
solemn rows, with folded hands, our faces toward 
the centre, looking as grave as young faces 
could, and as — resigned. Sighs from the bosoms 
of slender forms were audible in the course of 
this adjustment. 

The teacher's way was, to begin at the young- 
est, and pass from these to the older. I have a 
perfect recollection of his beginning with me, 
once. Laying his hand upon my head, every 
hair of which felt the touch, he said, " John, 



Il6 DE R WENT. 

What is the chief end of man f Amid profound 
stillness I gave the answer, " Man 'ih chief end 
ith to glorify God and enjoy him forever T How 
well I understood that, or any "chief end," I 
cannot say : what I did know was, that the svm- 
beams on the floor told us that it was noon, and 
I was a tired and hungry boy. The youngest 
would soon be at the end of their small stock of 
answers ; the older ones would get on stages 
farther, like a series of relays ; and then after all 
these, there would be two or three girls, — tall, 
leaji girls (no wonder they were lean), who would 
go on to the very last of the hundred and seven; 
so that we would not get out till one o'clock, or 
after; — and that, too, on our only play-afternoon 
of the week! How we wished those pi'odigious 
memories were shorter! 

Six long hours in the school-room daily, for 
five and a half days in the week. So many hours 
of brain-work there (besides lessons to be learned 
out of the school), for the older scholars, and so 
many hours of ennui and yawning for the little 
ones, and at the end of all this, the Catechism ! 
What ought to be, have been, and are, the con- 
sequences? Affections of the nerve and spine, 
headaches, pallor, lassitude, loss of mental power 



DER WENT. 



117 



through over-work and stimulation, early decay 
and death. Died of bad air, bad seats, and 
TOO many hours in school, would be the pro- 
per lettering of many a recent head-stone ; and 
on moss-grown ones, in old cemeteries, you might 
add, OF saying the Shorter Catechism. Wc 
have grown a little more considerate of young 
flesh and blood, than we were ; we have dropped 
the half day of Saturday, pretty generally, I be- 
lieve. But we still keep the six hours of the 
other days. This is too long for the health of 
young scholars, as overcrowding them with 
studies, cramming them, is too much for their 
minds. 

I was sent, for a time, when in my teens, to 
Bacon Academy, then a young and flourishing 
institution ; and there we were required to recite 
the Catechism with Vincent's " Explications " of 
it. And that our brains might not suffer for 
want of work on Sundays, we were expected to 
get these lessons, with their interminable exphca- 
tions, then, and be ready to recite them the next 

morning. The principal of the Academy, R o 

B gh, whose memory I respect, required the 

same thoroughness in these, that he did in Latin, 
or any other study. But it was up-hill work. 



Il8 DERWEN T. 

The lessons were so ill-gotten that he declared, 
in a fit of impatience, that he knew of no stronger 
evidence of total depravity than the aversion of 
young people to the Catechism. 



XII. 



JACK-O'-LANTERNS. 



MY father gave us an account, one morning, 
of an ignis fatuus, otherwise a jack-o'- 
lantern, which he had seen the evening before. 
Webster writes the name jack-zvitJi-a-lantcrn ; 
but I will give it as I have always heard it 
spoken. Webster also writes Will-wit h-a-wisp, 
instead of Will-d -the-zvisp ; which is another 
popular alias of frisky Jack. My father was 
coming over the bridge that crosses the Der- 
went, the " Turnpike Bridge," as it was called. 
The hour was late, and the night dark. The 
marshy flats that bordered the stream were broad 
there, and the crossing, except over the channel, 
was a long causeway, built high enough to be 
above the tides. As he came upon the bridge, 
he noticed a light towards the other end of it, 
which he supposed to be in the hand of some one 
coming over from that side. It did not, how- 
ever, meet him half-wav as he expected, but 

(.2.) 



122 D E R WEN T. 

staid where it was ; and, on approaching it, he 
perceived that it was not on the causeway, but 
over the marsh, a few yards from it. He sat on 
his horse and looked at it a long time, and, but 
for the mire, would have got down and gone to 
it. It rose out of the mud, a fitful, dancing flame, 
flaring up and dying away by turns, as a burnt- 
down candle does in its socket. These were 
circumstances to be noted, — its fantastic motions 
and its variableness of volume, — as by means of 
them we may understand the tricks it practices 
on beholders. 

What are jack-o'lanterns ? Ask the chemists.; 
they will tell you. I do not concern myself with 
them scientifically here, but am only looking at 
them in the light of the old popular ideas of 
them. Learned professors did not use to tell us 
what they were, exactly, only that they were 
some sort of gas, issuing from low wet grounds, 
and igniting in contact with the air, — though 
they were said to be sometimes seen in burying- 
grounds as well, — which increased their mysteri- 
ousness. 

The prospect from our home included exten- 
sive marshes and wet meadows, and a jack-o'- 
lantern over them was not a very rare sight to 



DER WENT. 



123 



US ; and we were often hearing of them from 
others who had seen them,— so that we thought 
we had a considerably familiar acquaintance with 
them. There was a variety of popular notions 
in regard to them, some of which were amusing, 
and some superstitious. Such notions are hardly 
to be met with now, I think ; for science, which 
dissipates a thousand errors, has scattered these 
will-of-the-wisp illusions. But, as they have for 
me, and may have for the reader, the interest of 
history, I shall specify some of them. 

They were thought to have the power of loco- 
motion ; moving sometimes slowly and some- 
times with astonishing swiftness, and always 
horizontally, and near the ground. But this 
apparent change of place was an illusion. For, 
observing them attentively, you would perceive 
that the movement would always be directly 
towards, or directl}^ from you, and never in a 
line oblique or perpendicular to this. I watched 
one, which seemed to be moving very swiftly, 
from right to left, and against a strong wind, too, 
for the night was very stormy ; but it soon occur- 
red to me to reflect that, in looking at it, I had 
not changed the direction of my eye at all, 
whereas, if the apparent movement had been a 



124 DERWEN T. 

real one, I ought to have turned half-way round. 
The illusion was aided, doubtless, by the driving 
wind and sloping rain, — as any fixed object seems 
to move in a direction opposite to that of a 
moving one passing b}'^ it. A stake standing in 
a stream will appear to move against the current. 
The advance and retrocession of the jack-o- 
lantern are explainable by the increase and dimi- 
nution of the flame. Growing larger, it will 
appear to be coming toward you ; growing less, 
it will appear to be going from you ; and the 
rapidity, or slowness, of its movement, to or fro, 
will depend on the rapidity or slowness of its 
increase or diminution. 

A number of our hired men, sitting out on the 
ground, talking, one muggy evening, were 
attracted by a light that could be nothing but a 
jack-o-lantern. They all sprang up and gave 
chase to it. It should have been boy-like in me 
to join them in such an adventure ; but I did not 
care to break my neck, tumbling over walls, 
stones, and stumps in a wild run in the dark. 
They came back out o^f breath, but in gleeful 
mood, declaring that there was " no overhauling 
the thing ; it went swifter than the wind, and 
was out of sight in a jiffy." 



DER WENT. 



125 



It was strange that nobody could ever cateh 
and examine these phantoms. They could have 
been caught, had people known how, but not 
with hounds. Our enthusiastic neighbor, " the 
Major," was quite sure that he had one of them, 
once. He approached it with the greatest pos- 
sible care, and clapped his hat over it. " And 
what was it?" we asked. "It wasn't nothing," 
he replied. " But what became of it ; where did 
it go to.''" "That is more than I know," said 
the Major. The probability was, that, in tread- 
ing around in the mud, his foot had closed the 
orifice from which it issued, else it might have 
resumed its shining on the removal of the hat. 

It was not to be wondered at, considering the 
mysteriousness and whimsicalness .of these singu- 
lar luminaries of wet grounds and misty nights, 
and the ignorance even of the savants of their 
nature and composition, if more people than 
were willing to confess as much should have felt 
a little skittish at being alone with one of them. 

And you would sometimes hear of ridiculous 
frights occasioned by them. Two young lovers, 
returning home from an evening visit, ran burst- 
ing into a house, the first they came to, with such 
precipitancy that they overturned chairs and 



126 DERWENT. 

tables. " Why, what is the matter ; what has 
happened?" asked such of the family as had not 
gone to bed, — in answer to which they declared 
that they had met a light borne by no mortal 
hand, and that it passed directly between them ! 
" Poh ! your poker stories." " No, but we posi- 
tively did." The place where they met the 
phantom, or it met them (they could not tell 
which), was where the road crossed a quagmire. 

There was a popular notion that a jack-o'- 
lantern would lead you into swamps and fens ; 
and credulous people really believed there was 
something in this. And so, indeed, there was. 
Appearing as these ignes fatui, false fires, do, in 
wet grounds — in marshes, swamps, and fens — if 
you direct yaur steps toward them, supposing 
them to be lights in houses, as easily you may, 
they will, of course, beguile you into such 
places. 

The old poets have this superstition. Thus 
Parnell, in his Fairy Tale : 

" Then Will, who bears the wispy fire, 
To train the swains among the mire " — . 

And I think you will find it in Shakespeare — who 
calls it Jack-of-the-lanthorn, by the way. 



DERIVE N T. 



127 



A man stopped at our house at late bed-time, 
one evening, on his way home from a husking. 
He had enjoyed too well the treat that had been 
given to the huskers : he was tipsy ; and it was 
doubtful what sort of steerage he would make 
of it, getting down to his lodgings. The next 
morning Mr. Prudden, with whom he was living, 
sent up to us to know if we had seen anything of 
Mr. Button. They had sat up late for him ; but 
he did not come — had not yet come ; and they 
were concerned about him. My father and 
others went out to look for him. After a long 
search, in barns and everywhere, we found him 
lying by a fence, a few steps from a bog-meadow 
at the foot of Mr. Prudden's home-lot. He 
stared at us as we came around him, and inclined 
to be silent to our inquiries. His look was be- 
wildered, his clothes were torn and very muddy, 
one shoe was missing, and altogether he made a 
very woe-begone figure. He was quite spent, 
and needed help to rise. The only account he 
would give of himself, or could give, probably, 
was, that he had been led into a swamp by a 
jack-o'-lantern. A short story, and, without 
doubt, a true one. He saw a light which he 
thought was in Mr. Prudden's house, and made 



128 DERWENT. 

for it, persistently, and very stupidly ; for he had 
to leave the road for it, and make his way through 
or over fences ; which would have told a sober 
man better. So he got swamped and lost.* 

* If some reader should happen to remember an article on 
Ignis Fatuus which appeared many years ago in " Silliman's 
Journal of Science," and some incidents mentioned in it, it 
might be necessary to say that it was contributed by the writer 
of this. 



XIII. 



THE RIVER. 



"AN ingenious Spaniard says, that 'rivers 
-^^-^ and the inhabitants of the watery ele- 
ment were made for wise men to contemplate, 
and fools to pass by without consideration.' And 
though I will not rank myself in the number of 
the first, yet give me leave to free myself from 
the last, by offering to you a short contempla- 
tion, first of rivers, and then of fish ; concerning 
which I doubt not but to give you many obser- 
vations that will appear very considerable ; I am 
sure they have appeared so to me, and made 
many an hour pass away more pleasantly, as I 
have sat quietly on a flowery bank by a calm 
river, and contemplated what I shall now relate 
to you." 

I quote this passage of our quaint old friend, 
honest Isaak's, because it suits my subject, and 
perhaps because it pleases me ; though I cannot 
so confidently promise to append to it " many 

(131) 



132 



DER WENT. 



observations that will appear very considera- 
ble." 

The Connecticut, the largest of the New-Eng- 
land rivers, and one of the most beautiful in the 
world, was a great thing with me in my boy- 
hood. Many of my hours of pastime were spent 
on it and at its side, and many of my working 
hours, too, along and near its bank. 

I loved to listen to its voices, — the fretting of 
its tides, coming in with breezes from the south ; 
the murmurs of its waves ; the dash of oars, when 
the air was still ; the sailor's, or the boatman's 
song, on a moon-lit evening : the " Heave-o- 
heave" of sailors at the windlass, and the click 
of its dropping pall as they were getting up 
their anchors ; the flapping of sails when a 
change of tack was made. 

Every one knows what a conductor of sound 
is water. The river was said to be a mile wide 
there. It looked as wide as that; it might be 
less ; but at any rate it was so wide that no one 
would think of making his voice heard across it, 
shouting. And yet in certain states of the at- 
mosphere, as we stood at the water's edge on 
our side, the most ordinary sounds would come 
over to us with perfect distinctness, from the 



DERWENT. 133 

other. We often listened to the splash of cattle's 
feet wading along the opposite shore. There 
was a solitary hut near the water on that side, 
tenanted by a poor family. I was startled, one 
day, by the sharp cry of a child belonging to it. 
The mother ran out, chiding it as if for a fault. 
Every syllable was audible. She caught up the 
little fellow in her arms, uttered an " Oh ! dear" 
of pity, took him into the house, reappeared in 
an instant, and ran up the river-side a long way, 
till she came to a road that turned inland, and 
disappeared. Something had befallen, evidently, 
and she was running for help. I learned, after- 
wards, that her little boy had climbed a tree that 
overhung a rock, and had fallen and broken his 
arm. How much have the distinctive dresses 
of boys and girls, — of the sexes, — to do with their 
distinctive habits! — though nature, which can- 
not be reformed away, undoubtedly does more. 
A girl's dress is not convenient for climbing ; 
hence girls do not climb, and fall from trees, and 
break their limbs, as boys so often do, and some- 
times their necks. 

I was never tired of looking at the river itself, as 
an object of beauty. But the great charm was the 
vessels. Almost always there would be some of 



134 DERIVE NT. 

these in sight, under sail, or at anchor ; often there 
would be a whole fleet of them coming into view 
together, from some reach above or below, where 
they had all been wind-bound, for hours,or days, 
it might have been, — on board of which it was but 
truth to fancy a great deal of gladness, now, if not 
of gratitude, for the change of wind that had 
given them release. These would be pleasing 
objects in any eye ; in mine they were fascinating, 
because of my strong penchant for the sea. 

No life appeared to me so bold, adventurous, 
and hardy, and at the same time so jovial, as the 
sailor's. This impression I got from the river, 
very naturally ; where I saw only the fresh-water 
end of the business. The crews of vessels just 
in from sea were always merry, — though they 
were less so, going out, I noticed ; and then they 
saw so much of the world, I fancied, and brought 
home such luscious fruits and sweetmeats. Thus 
the river was like to make a sailor of me ; but 
Providence and my friends were against it ; and 
so was my own maturer thought. My desire for 
a life on the ocean did not much outlast my early 
boyhood. 

This captivating feature of the river, the ves- 
sels, has in a great degree disappeared from it 



D ER WENT. 



135 



now. The last time I was there, instead of the 
many sails that used to so enliven and adorn it, 
I saw only a dirt)'^-looking schooner, or a rusty 
sloop, passing up or down, at long intervals, to 
carry stone, or coal, or such other articles as 
steamboats and freight-cars do not care to take. 
A very solitary look my once delightful old Con- 
necticut had to me. It is the steamboats and 
cars that have made the change. And what have 
they given us, instead, — these great things of 
progress "i of which I do not lightly speak. More 
speed for goods in a hurry, and for people ; but 
at the cost of how much of the agreeable and 
pleasing of the old routes and modes of travel ! 
What neat and home-like resting-places were 
those quiet inns we used to stop at, along the 
green old roads ! 

Dean Swift, I think it was, — some humorist, — 
defined angling to be " a stick and a string, with 
a worm at one end and a fool at the other." The 
author of that witticism would himself have been 
what he describes, with a fish-pole in his hand ; 
for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. But 
I could not have allowed it to be applicable to 
boys, in my young days ; nor do I now, looking 
back to that time. There is more sense and bet- 



136 DER WENT. 

ter taste in Izack Walton's opinion. " I shall tell 
you," he says, " what some have observed, and 
I have found it to be a real truth, that the very 
sitting by the river's side is not only the quietest 
and fittest place for contemplation, but will in- 
vite the angler to it." Angling, sitting still on a 
river's bank, or a pond's, may have an idle look 
with it ; and it may be idleness in fact, as the 
habit of some minds is ; but it may be well for 
educators of the young to consider whether, in 
all cases, hours that are spent in apparent listless- 
ness and vacancy are wasted hours. The richest 
intellectual stores of the finest minds have been 
the acquisition, often, of such hours. Rambles 
in the valley, or by the river, or by the sea-shore, 
and the society of woods, and shades, and brooks, 
and feathered and four-footed things, have done 
for them what seminaries and teachers could 
not do. 

My brother and I passed many a pleasant hour 
together, with our hooks and lines. Fish were 
abundant in our waters, and of various kinds, so 
that we seldom failed to take as many as we 
wished. We made some observations on their 
natures and habits. Aside from their respective 
qualities for the table, which might be the only 



DERWENT. 137 

ones that an epicure would think of, the scaly 
people have social instincts, are sportive, curious, 
shy in some cases, bold in others, and, in differ- 
ent degrees, beautiful, graceful, agile, or strong. 
It would be tedious to give instances ; but why 
should they come and go in shoals and compa- 
nies, if they had no social affinities ; and why 
does the sturgeon, for example, leap out of water, 
unless it be in play ? I believe that fishes need 
repose and sleep, as creatures of the land do, 
and that, perhaps, they love light and sunshine 
for this. I saw, one day, a fine large pickerel 
lying perfectly still, and evidently napping, in a 
shallow sun-lit water, under the bank of the Der- 
went. Approaching it carefully, I struck a smart 
blow with my fish-pole directly over it. In- 
stantly it darted out of sight, and the next instant 
returned with a force that threw it high and dry 
ashore ; and I picked it up. To be awakened 
so suddenly and violently appeared to have 
crazed it, — the pickerel being a remarkably shy 
fish. 

A variety of benefits substantial and lasting, as 
well as pastimes, my brother and I derived from 
the river. And if these were got in the way of 
amusement, the value of them was none the less 



138 DERWENT. 

for that. One of the benefits was our familiarity 
with boats. We learned to manage them with 
confidence, in the roughest weather, with oars, 
or with sails. And I can truly say that this 
acquirement has been of much use to me. Often 
it has enabled me to be ray own ferryman when 
I could not have found another. Many a time it 
has saved me from uneasiness and fear on the 
water, and has been the means of quieting the 
apprehensions of others. More than once it has 
availed me in circumstances of considerable peril. 
More than once, too, in my boyhvjod, it led me 
into peril. I remember venturing out with two 
other lads, in a small boat, in such circumstances 
that spectators from the shore regarded us as 
little better than lost ; and indeed we did but 
narrowly escape. I think we may have owed, 
in some degree, the cheerfulness and vigor of our 
boyhood to our boating ; for I know of no better 
gymnastic exercise than a pull at the oar, and 
there is no better air, off the hills, than one 
breathes on the water. 

I have no idea how, or when, we might have 
acquired this tact and confidence as boatmen, if 
we had not done so when we were young, and in 
the way of pastime. There are many useful 



DERWENT. I3Q 

things which boys learn, being boys, which they 
would never learn, being men. 

There was always beauty, and sometimes 
grandeur, in the river fogs. One needed an 
elevated position, such as we had at our old 
home, for observing them. Often they occurred 
in the evening ; and then they only hid and 
mystified everything. But oftener they would 
appear early in the morning, when the previous 
day had been hot, and the night cool. First you 
would see a soft, white line, rising from the river, 
of the same width with it, resting on, and hiding 
it, and winding Avith it ; the tributary creeks, on 
both sides, also assuming the same appearance. 

The fleecy vapors, slowly rising, almost sleep- 
ing, when the air was breathless, would spread 
themselves over the adjacent meadows and low 
grounds, and then floating upward and outward, 
would fill all the lower valleys, and then the 
higher ones, till only the tops of hills would be 
visible, showing like islets on a feathery ocean. 

The most of these would be on the further side 
of the river, the country on that side abounding 
with hills. Some of them would have houses on 
them, others groves. 

Fog is a fantastic, shifting thing, curious to 



I40 



DER WENT. 



contemplate, but not easy to describe; nor do I 
suppose that any two people would, in a given 
case, see and describe it alike. And in any large 
and varied scene, there are small phenomena that 
hardly can be given descriptively ; they want the 
eye. In the progress of these vaporous forma- 
tions, here spoken of, every moment changed the 
aspect of the landscape, and, in effect, the face of 
nature. First, as I have said, you had the river 
and creeks of mist ; then the green meadows 
turned into a misty lake ; and finally, if the mass 
happened to rise and rest just high enough, and 
evenly enough, — no matter if it were a little 
billowy, — and you looked over it, you had the 
feathery sea. The illusion of an ocean, or shore- 
less water, with apolynesiain it, as we sometimes 
saw it, was perfect. This effect was best beneath 
a bright full moon. 

The river in its vernal flood, or freshet, was an 
object of interest, as all rivers are at such a time. 
There would be thousands of eyes looking at it, all 
along, from its source to its mouth, many of them 
anxiously, because of the damage it might do. 
Instead of our usually placid, quiet river, ebbing 
and flowing with the tides, and content within 
its banks, it became a swollen, turbid stream, 



DERWENT.- 141 

bearing on its bosom many evidences of the mis- 
chief it was doing above us. It overflowed and 
did away its tributaries ; drowned the meadows ; 
spread a wide lake beneath us; and cast its drift- 
trash all round upon the temporary shores it 
made at the bottoms of our front lands. 

One would hardly believe what a bar to social 
intercourse a river is, between people living on 
the opposite sides of it. " Mountains interposed 
make enemies of nations, which had else, like 
kindred drops, been mingled into one." A mile's 
width of water makes strangers of families which 
had else been near and pleasant neighbors. As 
we looked across to Hadington, it seemed to us 
a tei-ra incognita. We knew some names of 
people on that side, and whose were some of the 
houses that we saw; we were acquainted with 
their venerable and genial old minister, — the 
"Patriarch," we called him, — and were often 
made glad by seeing him in our pulpit and at our 
house; but in most social respects, and generall}'', 
the two sides were as two hemispheres. Their 
gossip and small news, their parties, courtships, 
weddings, seldom crossed the intervening water. 
It would be an idle speculation, but hardly an 
unnatural one, in such circumstances, just to im- 



142 



D E R WENT. 



agine how different many things might have 
been, but for such a barrier; as, for example, 
what different conjugal and family connections 
might have been formed, and how much happier, 
or less happy, the parties to them might have 
been. 

I am lingering too long, I fear, at the river, but 
I must say something of its old crossings, the 
ferries; which had somewhat of the romantic 
about them. " A boat, a boat ! Unto the ferr3^" 

They were located at the narrowest places of 
the river, and were from two to four miles apart. 
They were established by colonial authority, and, 
of course, were legally protected from opposition 
lines, and regulated as to fares. " This court" — 
so runs the grant of one of them, — to wit, the 
general court. May loth, 1694, — "grants liberty to 
Robert Wakefield to set up a ferry over the 
Great River in Hexam for the future ; " and it 
has been called Wakefield's Ferry from that day 
to this. 

It was at this ferry that we oftenest had occa- 
sion to cross, and the account of it to be here 
given may answer, in most respects, for all of 
them. The road that led down to it from the 
main highway was houseless and shady, and 



DER WE NT , 



143 



there was neither house nor wharf at either of 
its landings. Arriving at it on our side, if the 
ferryman was on the other, and out of sight, 
as he generally would be, his home being there, 
you had to blow the horn for him, or rather the 
great conch-shell, which he kept ready for the 
purpose. You would find this lying conspicuously 
on the head of a post. If you had come on a 
horse, or in a carriage, you must have it where 
he could see it, and near the water ; else, seeing 
only a pedestrian, he would come over for you 
in a skiff, or, if he was in doubt about this, as he 
might be, seeing a horse, yours or somebody's, a 
little in the background, you would be asked by 
him, through a speaking-trumpet, " Have you 
got a horse ? " If you had, you would say so by 
bringing the animal forward ; and in that case he 
would come in a large boat, with a hand to help. 
The boat was of the scow fashion, though not as 
large as the ordinary scow ; the bottom as flat as 
a floor, the sides upright, the ends square. The 
mast was stepped in one of the sides, to be out 
of the way of carriages. The sail was a shoulder- 
of-mutton, boomless, but sometimes having a 
short gaff". A rude-looking craft was the old 
ferry scow. 



144 DER WENT. 

She was not as regular and punctual in her 
trips, or transits, as is the modern steam ferry- 
boat. She knew nothing of time-tables, and not 
much of time itself. Often some accident, or 
circumstance such as a strong current, a broken 
oar, or an intractable horse, would retard her, 
and tax your patience in waiting. But there is 
seldom an inconvenience, or a loss, without some 
compensatory thing attending it ; while you are 
waiting thus, there will be others arriving and 
waiting with you ; conversation will ensue, and 
an opportunity be afforded you for studying 
characters and manners ; or, you may sit down 
by yourself and be occupied with listening and 
looking, — as one may, in such a place, rivers 
being " made for wise men to contemplate." '' It 
is very tiresome, this waiting for the boat," says 
an impatient man to an acquaintance, a lady 
who is sitting tranquilly on her horse near the 
shore. " Yes, if one is in haste, it is," she re- 
plied. " I am not pressed for time, this morn- 
ing ; and I am never tired of looking at the 
river." 

The old ferr}^ man, grown grave and weather- 
beaten with long service, was a character in his 
way, and might be worthy of our notice; but I 



DERIVE NT. 145 

shall leave the river and the reader here, if the 
reader please, with these good people that arn 
waiting for the boat. 



XIV. 



Annals of the Meadow. 



THE MEADOW, as we called it, by way of 
eminence, but sometimes the River Mead- 
ow, was an important feature of the farm. It is 
the margin of meadows that makes the valley of 
the Connecticut so rich and beautiful. Ours 
was a fine, luxuriant tract. With the river in 
front, it had the Derwent and the Little Derwent 
for its limits north and south. Originally it was 
a wet and almost impenetrable swamp, a thicket 
of alders, briers, creeping vines, and a variety of 
nameless and noxious growths. At the time of 
my earliest recollection of it, about sixty acres 
had been reclaimed, but behind these there were 
many acres still in their wild state. 

This swamp was the home and the hatching- 
place of various birds, particularly blackbirds. 
Vast numbers of these made it their retreat and 
lodging ; and a secure one it was, for you could 
not see them, nor get at them there with a gun. 

(149) 



150 DERWEN T. 

But every winter saw the domain of the bush 
and the bird contracting, and that of the scythe 
enlarging ; the winter, with its frosts and leisure, 
being the time for bush-cutting. The swamp is 
gone now, and gone are the blackbirds, — as are 
the Indians with the forest. One sees a few of 
them flying about, but not those immense flocks 
that once darkened the air like clouds, and black- 
ened the tops of trees wherever they lit, and 
crazed people with their music, if music it was, 
when the humor took them, some hundreds of 
them together, to scream and chatter in concert. 
This they sometimes did, on a bright da}^, with 
their crops full of stolen corn, no doubt ; but of 
these performances they were rather chary ; for 
they were not, naturally, great singers, nor had 
they good consciences, it may be believed, being 
thieves and in bad repute. 

The meadow presented a variety of scenes and 
aspects, successively, in the course of the four 
seasons, which might be called its Annals. 

Nothing could be more chill and dreary, in a 
child's eye — in any eye — than that meadow look- 
ed in winter, — cold, lone, and silent. And the 
frozen river without a vessel or a boat, between 
which and the meadow there seemed a sympa- 



DERWENT. 151 

thy and fellowship in loneness, was an extension 
of the scene. The snows that fell on either did 
not drift and twirl themselves into fantastic 
shapes and heaps, as they do, so plaj^fully, on 
uneven ground, but lay in flat, dull, monotony, 
like a vast sheet spread out to bleach. Nor were 
the rigors of the picture softened by the cold, 
bleak hills of Hadington for a background. 

Spring comes, and with it comes the freshet, 
submerging the meadow for a time, but enrich- 
ing it with the alluvium it has brought down 
from many hill-sides and mountains in the north. 
It is the freshets that have made these bottoms ; 
for many a century they have been about it. 
Each age works, — the Creator working in and 
with its natural forces, — for the benefit of the 
ages that come after it ; as each generation does 
for its successors. These bottom-lands, in their 
rude state, are instances of nature's working ; 
these charming meadows are instances of man's. 

After the freshet came the fishing season. And 
then the river's bank and the river were alive 
with men of the boat and seine, and with people 
coming from back towns to buy shad. Our fish- 
ermen, Derwenters generally, were men of good 
common education, and good morals. The most 



152 DERWENT. 

of them had other callings of their own, but they 
liked to quit them, for the time, for the sake of 
change. Often there were wits and humorists 
among them, and generally they were a merry 
company. Fishing, in all its kinds, is naturally 
exciting for the adventure of it, and its luck ; 
and in those days, when the river was so much 
more full of fish than now, and great hauls were 
so common, the shad-catching was by no means 
of the dullest sort. Of course the river-side was 
an attractive place to boys ; and still more so 
were the creek-sides, that of the Derwent par- 
ticularly, if they had their fish-hooks with them. 
This scene passes, and we have, next, the 
meadow in its summer aspects. You go down 
into it about the end of June, suppose. The fish- 
ermen are gone ; their boats are hauled ashore 
and sheltered, or turned bottom-up ; the reels 
are naked, and the capstans idle. The place is 
lonesome. How rank and rapidly the grass has 
grown ! You stand and contemplate the broad, 
green expanse before you, — broad in fact, but 
seemingly broader than it is, because it is so flat 
and even, and so destitute of visible bounds and 
objects to aid the eye in estimating it. We judge 
of distances, heights, magnitudes, as every pic- 



DER WENT. 153 

ture-seer knows, by comparing them with objects 
that we are familiar with ; for example, of the 
height of a tower by that of a man we see at its 
base ; of the extent of a prospect by the size of 
animals, or other familiar things in the back- 
ground. In this meadow over which you are 
looking, there is not a tree, nor a shrub, nor a 
swell, nor a bush. The line of bush, still unre- 
claimed, that skirts it on the rear, looks lower 
than it is, because of the grass which partially 
conceals it, and, looking lower, seems further off. 
The grass, peculiar, as it would almost appear, to 
those river meadows, — I have never seen it else- 
where, — is exceedingly exuberant, owing to the 
fertilizing deposits of the vernal floods. Almost 
even with your eye, it presents a peculiarly soft 
and feathery surface. It is flecked with its own 
gay lily, the meadow-lily, and other meadow- 
loving flowers ; and is vocal with its own bird, 
the meadow-lark. 

If anything had been wanting to enhance the 
lonesomeness you naturally felt in such a place, 
this bird would have supplied it. It had a holi- 
day look, for its plumage was gay ; but its spirit 
was restless, and its music peculiar and mel- 
ancholy. It would rise, fluttering, a few yards 



154 DERWENT. 

straight up in the air, warbling as it rose, and 
then, dropping itself upon a lily-head, or any 
stem that would bear it, would sit a moment 
and be up again. Its notes were exceedingly 
rapid, and as liquid as the sounds of water drop- 
ping into a silver basin. I never could account 
for the effect this bird had on me, invariably, 
whenever I heard it, — and I oftenest met with 
it in lonely fields of tall grass, particularly the 
meadows. Nor was I aware that others were 
similarly impressed by it. Was it owing to 
some idiosyncrasy in me? Turning now to my 
dictionary, I find this description of it given by 
Webster : " A well-known, beautiful bird, often 
seen in open fields in the United States. Its note 
is clear, but melancholy." So others, as well as 
I, have perceived this quality of its music : the 
idiosyncrasy was the bird's, not mine. I can 
hardly forbear to mention that, at the moment I 
am writing this, the note of one of them, still 
" clear, but melancholy," as in the former time, 
reaches me from a meadow not far off. 

Go down into the meadow in the afternoon of 
a bright day in haying-time ; or look down on it 
from a neighboring eminence. Rakes and forks, 
flashing in the sun, are streaking the ground 



DERWENT. 155 

with long windrows, and rolling these into great 
brown heaps. Large patches more are striped 
with swaths, lying as the scythe has laid them. 
Great loads are piling on the carts and moving 
off for the barns. 

"And what of all this?" some one will say, per- 
haps. " What do you invite our attention to 
here but one of the very ordinary affairs of farm- 
life, the business of making hay ?" 

It may be that I am too fond of reviving old 
familiar scenes : it is true that this is but a com- 
mon one, and any account of it may have but an 
ordinary interest with ordinary people. The in- 
terest of any scene, however, as an object of the 
senses, depends on the eye of the beholder ; since 
all beauty, all ugliness, is in the mind. In the 
view of your dry utilitarian, your mere matter- 
of-fact man, that " mown grass" is so much fod- 
der, — nothing more, — so much wealth to its own- 
er ; for the which the said owner is to be con- 
gratulated, or envied. But, in the musing boy's 
eye, all those streaks, and belts, and heaps, and 
loading wains, are a grand and vivid picture, 
full of life and poetry. And the picture is the 
more charming because it is a changing one. 
Each row and pile has its shady side, and the 



ic6 DERWENT. 

shadows stretch and spread themselves every 
moment, as the sun declines, till all the ground 
is mantled with them, and dusk and night close 
over the scene. Search in the child's mind for 
that picture after threescore years and ten have 
passed, and you will find it. 

Cattle feeding on the meadow, in autumn, fin- 
ish its history for the year. 



XV. 



CATTLE. 



AMONG the gifts to man at his creation 
were the domestic animals. They were 
given him for meat and for service. But it is 
not to be supposed that they were merely for 
these uses ; there were other and finer ends con- 
cerned in the gift. They have a social and a 
moral value. They are a trust committed to our 
care ; and are for the exercise of our benevolent 
and kindly feelings. They have their poetic 
aspects. The country would want one of its 
essential charms without them ; country homes, 
and farms, would be comparatively dull ; green 
meadows would be wastes, and pastures unprofit- 
able wilds. 

Dr. Johnson quotes a passage from Ecclesias- 
ticus, " His talk is of cattle," with a contemptuous 
application of it to the friend he was visiting, be- 
cause he entertained him with his farming affairs, 
rather than with literary subjects : it might 

(159) 



l6o DERWEN T. 

have been well for Dr. Johnson's rough nature 
if he had himself been more conversant with 
cattle than he was. 

My talk is of cattle. I have a few things to 
say here, of their habits, tempers, and behavior. 

They are very susceptible to kind treatment, 
and equally so to the opposite : which is evidence 
of the intention of their Creator that kindness 
should be our law in dealing with them. They 
recognize the kind owner as a friend, and are 
glad to see him anywhere. They have a mute, 
grateful look for him, raising their heads, as he 
crosses the fields where they are grazing. The 
call " Co', Co', {Cojne, come,)" would bring ours 
from the remotest corners of the pasture, — per- 
haps from a thicket, or a wood, or from behind a 
knoll, often on the run, and lowing, expecting to 
be treated with salt, or some other good thing. 

So susceptible to gentleness, and the contrary, 
are the animals, that you may infer from their 
behavior the tempers of their owners. The oxen 
of the kind owner will not refuse the yoke, nor 
be impatient under it'; it is otherwise with those 
of the unkind one. Our neighbor, Mr. Nettler, 
for instance, was a fractious, fretful man, and the 
behavior of his beasts was answerable to this. 



D ER WENT. l6l 

The gentlest and best-broken horse in the world 
was sure to be spoiled in his hands. So were 
oxen. He came one day to the foot of a hill with 
a load of wood. The oxen were doing well 
enough, but, as they began to ascend, he must 
needs begin to whip and bawl to keep them 
agoing. This disheartened and confused them. 
They stopped and settled back. And now, 
smarting under the lash, and whisking their tails, 
they would give, first one and then another, a 
jerk, no two of them drawing together. '' What 
does ail the cattle?" said Mr. Nettler, and began 
to whip and bawl again with vigor. The effect 
of this was to make the forward yoke swing 
round on the off side against the hind ones. 
Being met there with the butt of the whip on 
their noses, they went round the other way. 
Meeting with like treatment there, they swung 
back again. And for the benefit of all abusers of 
oxen in the yoke, I should like to see a good en- 
graving of the scene which they and their owner 
now presented. They were all in confusion and 
" heads and points." One poor beast would lift 
his nose as high as he could, to avoid the thwacks 
that menaced it, while another would drop his 
between his feet, and another would whisk his 
II 



l62 D ER WENT. 

tail and make a deprecating moan. " I never did 
see cattle act so," said Mr. Nettler, and kept say- 
ing so, when, in fact, he had seen his own, these 
and others of his, act just so a hundred times. 

At this juncture my grandfather happened to 
come along. "What is the matter, Mr. Nettler; 
can't they draw it up?" 

"Can't? They zvont, and wouldn't if you 
threw off half of it. I never did see creeturs act 
as they do." 

" Suppose you let me try 'em," said my grand- 
father. " I think they'll take it up easily enough."- 

Getting down from his horse, he passed round 
the team, patted each ox, spoke to them in kind 
and cheery tones, and by a little pushing at their 
hips, — for they were standing all ways, — got 
them straight and right for a united pull. " Not 
yet," he said to their fretful and fretted owner. 
" Not yet ; there is too much white in their eyes 
for a good start yet." And then, waiting till they 
had become quite calm and reassured, he took 
the whip from Mr. Nettler's hand, to prevent his 
using it, not to use it himself, and in a tone of 
gentle, but decided authority said, " Come, now, 
come — all together — go along." And they went, 
steadily and bravely, quite up the steep, their 



DER WENT. 163 

volunteer driver keeping along with them, and 
their owner following. 

Arriving at the top, " Ho," said my grandfa- 
ther. " Let them stand and breathe a httle, now ; 
they have done their duty very well ;" and hand- 
ing the whip to their owner, he passed round 
and patted them again. " How strangely they 
behave !" said Mr. Nettler. " Did anybody ever 
see such cattle .''" 

The fondness of all creatures for their young is 
interesting ; that of the neats is not the least so. 
The cow manifests the greatest satisfaction in 
suckling her calf. Though her teats may be 
sore, or her bag caked, she does not mind the 
sharp teeth or the butting of the young thing. 
Keeping the calves at home, you will see the 
mother at the bars of the pasture waiting to be 
let out at night. 

When a cow calves in the field, she hides her 
treasure ; and that so securely, in some bush, or 
dell, that it is difficult to find it. She is careful 
not to aid you in the search. She lies down, or 
feeds, at a distance from the spot ; and though 
she may keep an eye on you if you get pretty 
near to it, she does it with an air of unconcern. 
She is relying on the calf to give the alarm, if 



164 DER WEN T. 

necessary ; for the calf is in the secret with her. 
The reliance is not a mistaken one. If you come 
upon the innocent suddenly, he starts up and 
bellows with all his might ; and then comes the 
cow, in great excitement, running and bellowing 
in response. I remember instances in which the 
search had to be given up : there was a calf 
somewhere, but who could tell where? In such 
cases the cow must be driven home and kept 
awhile, and then be taken back, and watched 
from a distance. 

Both quadrupeds and fowls are often laugha- 
bly at odds with the instincts of the changeling 
young of different species. A hen will hatch 
ducks, or goslings, and will care for them as she 
would for chickens ; but she is greatly embar- 
rassed by their behavior. They will not under- 
stand her cluck ; nor take what she scratches up 
for them from the ground ; nor learn that most 
important lesson of henhood, the duty of scratch- 
ing for themselves ; they refuse to roost with her 
on a tree or on a pole, when they are big enough 
to do so, and she thinks it not safe for them to 
sleep on the ground ; and, worst of all, at sight 
of water, they will run straight into it, at the 
imminent risk of bein": drowned. All these odd 



DERWEN T. 165 

ways of theirs are unaccountable and distressing 
to her. 

A lamb had lost its mother. We put it to a 
new milch cow. She disliked the fosterling at 
first, but soon became as fond of it as she was of 
her calf, licking the two alternately. When the 
calf was taken from her to be weaned, she made 
no complaint; but when the lamb, which- had 
thriven wonderfully, was taken away, some time 
after, she had evidently lost her pet. Though 
she had always been a very quiet and orderly 
creature, she would now low all day in the pas- 
tures for the lamb, and break through strong 
fences to get to it. 

There are various instincts and ways which 
one notices with interest in all the domestic ani- 
mals of the farm ; some of which are common to 
the different kinds, and some peculiar to indi- 
viduals, and to species. 

They are gregarious ; and this is another way 
of saying they are sociably disposed among 
themselves. They like to feed and rest together. 
If you find one of the herd, or of the flock, in the 
fields, you may expect to find the others not far 
off. This was often a relief to me in looking 
for the cows. Searching everywhere in the wide 



l66 DERWENT. 

pasture, I would come at length upon one of 
them, and would say to myself, cheerily, There ! 
thei-e's one of you, and the rest are somewhere 
near. 

They are susceptible of strong individual at- 
tachments, in certam circumstances. Two horses, 
or two oxen, that have worked together, are un- 
willing to be separated. Virgil gives us an in- 
stance of this, in the passage in which he repre- 
sents an ox as mourning the loss of his mate, 
which has dropped and died in the furrow. 

They are all sportive while they are young, 
and will be more or less so when older, if they 
are well fed and cared for. You see bullocks 
locking horns in play, and sleek cows go frisking 
homewards at night. Even a large fat ox of my 
grandfather's, capering about the lot with his 
mate on a frosty Autumn morning, fell and was 
so much injured that it was necessary to kill him. 

They have their peculiar instinctive fears. The 
horned cattle — I cannot say as to other kinds — 
do not like to be .in the woods in a high wind. 
I remember a number of them running wildly 
out of a grove of tall old chestnuts into the open 
ground, and there stopping, with their heads up, 
looking. A black squall behind them accounted 



DERWENT. 167 

for their behavior; they heard it coming, and 
might be apprehensive, with good reason, that it 
would bring down trees, or limbs, about their 
ears ; or they wanted, at any rate, to be out in 
the open world where they could look and see. 
A different kind of danger might have sent them 
into the wood, as a hiding-place. 

Their tempers and resentments, in individual 
cases, are remarkable. I was in the habit of 
throwing potatoes, one at a time, to a pet cow. 
She was extremely fond of them. I threw her a 
cold boiled one ; she ran to it eagerly, took it in 
her mouth, dropped it, turned short round and 
kicked at it ; and cast an angry look at me. We 
had an animal which we called the Black Cow. 
She was indeed the blackest, as well as the finest- 
haired and sleekest creature that could easily 
have been found ; and gave the richest milk. 
She might have been exhibited with confidence 
at a national cattle-show. She was perfectly gen- 
tle and well-behaved, except when she had a calf; 
then she was one of the Furies. It was danger- 
ous for any one to go near her, except a man to 
whom she was used, armed with a stout stick. 
It was not our way, however, to beat her, in her 
moods, high-strung as she was ; that would only 



l68 DERWENT. 

have made her worse. It happened one evening 
that there was no man at home. One of the 
maids said she w^ould undertake to milk her, if 
I would stand by her. I, a half-grown boy, ac- 
cepted the service ; and providing myself with a 
cudgel, posted myself a yard or two before her 
She shook her horns at me, now and then, and 
made other hostile demonstrations, particularly 
a low angry bellowing or moaning, which was 
characteristic of her, but held in tolerably well, 
for her, till the girl had finished the milking and 
left the yard. Then, as I turned to leave, she 
drove at me from behind, knocked me down, and 
stood over me, bellowing, with her nose close to 
me, fiercely trying to catch me on her horns. I 
got half up repeatedly, and was knocked down 
again, but at length succeeded in springing to 
my feet, my cudgel in my hands. Then she 
turned and pitched herself right through the 
strong close siding of the cow-house, an open 
wing of the barn, as a cornered cat goes through 
a pane of glass; and ran madly down the road. 

There was an old Scotch Highlander in the 
place, who was always boasting of his bravery in 
the old French War; he had been where the 
" blue bullets were flying, and the Yankees ran 



D ERIVE NT . 169 

away." He scouted the idea of being afraid of a 
cow, — that " rid coo," as he called the one we 
had to deal with on a certain occasion, — or of 
using any particular precautions against her ; 
and, putting his brav^ery in practice, he started 
for the barn-yard where the creature was, with 
only a piece of a broomstick in his hand. " Stop, 
Donald," said my grandfather, calling after him ; 
" stop, I tell you, or you'll have her horns in 
you." " Hoot ! mon ; afraid of a coo !" he an- 
swered, over his shoulder, and kept on into the 
yard. The cow at once assumed a manner to- 
ward him more formidable than French bullets. 
He thought it prudent to retreat ; but before he 
could get to and over the bars, she had him be- 
tween her horns, — seated between them, — and 
pitched him quite over into the street, — much to 
the amusement of my grandfather, who saw he 
was not hurt. 

The Black Cow would resent an affront some- 
times when there was no calf in the case. She 
was licking some salt upon the edge of a bank 
which was faced with a steep rock some two 
yards or more high ; when one of the old wheel- 
oxen, Duke by name, as white as she was black, 
and of twice or thrice her weight, came and 



lyo D E R WENT. 

drove her away from it, and went to licking it 
himself. She retired to a higher part of the 
bank, and stood looking down at him, shaking 
her horns as her way was, and was evidently 
getting worked up into a towering passion ; till, 
by and bye, she turned and plunged squarely 
down upon him, and with her sharp horns against 
his ribs, pushed Duke sideways off the steep. It 
was a wonder, heavy as he was, that it did not kill 
or lame him ; but he "got up and walked slowly 
away, while the cow finished the salt in peace. 
There are characters among animals as there are 
among men ; that black cow was a character. 

There are animals which, if they were human, 
you would say were humorists, rogues, wags. 
Young bulls often are instances of this. You are 
starting off the cows in the morning for the pas- 
ture. Mr. Bull resolves that they shall not budge 
a step without his permission ; and, in pure mis- 
chief, taking possession of the road in advance 
of them, he drives them back in your face, per- 
sistently. Of course, the question of authority 
is raised between you and him ; — quo warranto. 
As " neither words nor tufts of grass will do," 
with the young sauce-box, "you try what virtue 
there is in stones." 



D ER WENT. 171 

I have never seen a steeple-chase, but I was 
once engaged in what might have passed for 
one. I was mounted on a smart young horse, 
and a frolicsome. young bull was my competitor. 
Rough fields were galloped over; 'braker and 
tangled vines were ridden through ; a stone fence 
was leaped ; a steep hill-side swiftly descended, 
a hidden "pent-road" threaded ; and a mill-pond 
swam, — that is, the bull swam and re-swam it, 
myself crossing and re-crossing on the dam, at 
some risk of being swept off by the water that 
was pouring over it. And here the bovine party 
gave up. Cooled by his bath, and his breath 
spent, he was willing, now, to return on a slow 
walk to our starting-place — a pair of bars through 
which he had waggishly refused to pass, or let 
his fellow-cattle pass, from that pasture to an- 
other. The race was an exciting one to all con- 
cerned. The horse enjoyed his part in it. No 
necks were broken, nor eyes scratched out, but I 
would not care to repeat the performance. 

Neats, like sheep, goats, deer, and some other 
grazing animals, crop the grass and swallow it 
with little or no chewing. In this way they fill 
themselves, and then, as every one knows, they 
stop and ruminate, gulping up the contents of 



1/2 DERWENT. 

their stomachs by mouthfuls, chewing it thor- 
oughly, and swallowing it again. Standing or 
lying in the shade, their eyes half-shut and sleepy, 
they are a picture of contentment and repose. 
And this chewing of the cud is to them, without 
doubt, a prolonged gratification. What are they 
thinking off? Nothing? That is more than he 
that says so knows. We say they are rumin- 
ating. Applying that word to human kind, we 
mean by it, musing, meditating. Do cattle muse 
and meditate ? 



XVI. 



SHEEP 



I WOULD not choose to miss the ovine peo- 
ple from my farm-life reminiscences, as I 
would not the bovine, or the equine. " As timid 
as a sheep," " As gentle as a lamb :" — these are 
proverbial expressions, and they both convey de- 
scriptive truth. No creature is more timorous 
than the sheep is naturally, and none is more 
confiding, where confidence is safe. Within and 
around the barn-yard they will eat at the same 
rack, or pile of hay, with the ox, or the horse, 
without fear of horns or heels. A mess of oats 
in a corn-basket was set down in the back yard 
for old Dick, the pet family horse ; two or three 
saucy sheep immediately thrust their heads into 
it, and Dick was Hkely to be robbed of his din- 
ner. It was of no use to nip their woolly necks ; 
so, taking the basket in his teeth, he trotted off 
with it and set it on a pile of cord-wood above 
their reach. In the pastures they will come 

(I7S) 



iy6 D ER WEN T. 

crowding around you, if they know you, tread- 
ing on your toes, bleating in your face, and ask- 
ing for the salt you may have been thoughtful 
enough, they hope, to have in your bag, or bas- 
ket, for them. 

They have a mortal fear of dogs. At sight of 
one their instinct is to flee ; but if they have 
young lambs with them, they will stand and face 
him, and stamp at him with their feet, — a show 
of bravery which amuses children more than it 
scares the dog. They are, however, not at all 
afraid of their own farm-dog. Nor ai-e they 
much afraid of their near canine neighbors which 
they often see, and know to be well-disposed. 
And how confidingly they go afield with the 
shepherd's dog, where such are used. Between 
him and them there is a perfect understanding. 
He knows the allowed limits of their range ; and 
if they go beyond them, he brings them in again. 
He does this in the gentlest manner, and they 
easily submit to it. Very admirable is his vigi- 
lance and fidelity. And, in my belief, it is for 
this service that this species and others suscepti- 
ble of similar training, were specially intended 
by the Creator. In wide, unfenced districts, 
such as the grazing countries of the East were 



DER WENT. 



177 



anciently, and are now, and such as there are in 
many parts of Europe, it would be difficult to 
manage sheep in large numbers without the dog. 
And, besides the assistance he renders, he is 
company for the shepherd, who must be often 
solitary in the fields. Job employed them in this 
way ; and had more respect for them, he said, 
than he had for some of human kind, — " whose 
fathers I would have disdained to have set with 
the dogs of my flock." 

Sheep are noticeable as curious path-makers. 
Moving in single file, and keeping to the same 
track when once adopted, they tread, with their 
small, sharp hoofs, a hard, well-defined path, of 
a few inches' width, and very crooked, — winding 
through bushes, around stones, hillocks and 
quagmires, along the valley, up the hill-side, 
through the wood, — showing more regard to 
lines of beauty than to economy of distance. I 
was fond of threading these devious " sheep- 
paths." 

The ram leads the flock ; where he goes, they 
follow. I remember a ludicrous instance of this. 
An old man, drowsy from drink, lay down under 
the wall by the road-side and fell asleep. Be- 
hind the wall was a field of grain ; some sheep 
12 



178 



DER IV EN T. 



got into it ; the owner of the field came and 
drove them out; and the ram, happening to leap 
the wall just where the sleeper lay, came down 
right upon him. He started up in a maze, and 
tried to get upon his feet, but, plump, plump, 
plump, they all came, knocking him over as fast 
as he attempted to do so. A mashed hat, torn 
clothes, and some spots of black-and-blue on his 
skin, .were the consequences. The old man's 
comment on his adventure was, " Sheep are an 
innocent lookhi critter, but they have a good deal of 
divil in 'em, after all." 

" As crooked as a ram's horn" is a form of com- 
parison much in use ; and it is the best that could 
be hit upon ; for of all things ram's horns are the 
crookedest. No two pairs of them are of a com- 
mon fashion, nor is it often that the two on the 
same head are alike and well-mated. The horns 
of other animals have some form and grace to 
them, and are ornamental ; those of rams — which 
are rudely ringed and rough, as well as crooked, 
— would be deformities were it not that we re- 
gard them as natural, and proper to such heads. 
Things of nature's own forming, though they 
may be unshapely, odd, queer, can hardly strike 
us as disagreeable. And, indeed, how ridiculous 



DERWENT. I^g 

would a ram look with other than such horns 
as rams naturally have. But they sometimes 
assume a twist that is uncomfortable to the wear- 
er. I noticed, one day, in the pasture, that a 
ram's face was bleeding. I caught him without 
difficulty, — for he seemed to hope I might re- 
lieve him, — and found that one of his horns was 
growing into his cheek, causing him a slow tor- 
ture. He held still while I cut off as much of it 
as was necessary. It was a tedious job, for my 
knife was small and dull ; but the remembrance 
of it has been a lasting satisfaction to me. It 
should be a part of every one's wisdom to know 
that the pleasure resulting from an act of kind- 
ness, is a lasting pleasure ; and that equally en- 
during is the pain consequent on its omission. 

" Wool-gathering" is another expression often 
met with. It has a figurative significance in 
common use ; the literal is this : sheep, in their 
ramblings about the fields, will often leave a lit- 
tle of their wool hanging upon briers and bushes. 
You can go and glean it, if you will, but it will 
not pay you for your time. 

The black sheep is made the representative of 
an ill-behaved person : " He is a black sheep ;" 
that is, a disturber of his family, or neighbor- 



iSo DERIVENT. 

hood, or in some way an exceptional, and excep- 
tionable, character. The literal black sheep, 
thus libellouslj made the symbol of bad quali- 
ties, is peculiar only in its color ; there is hardly 
one in a hundred. The brown sheep is still more 
uncommon. 

To an ordinary observer sheep may appear to 
be so much ahke as not to be distinguishable one 
from another. This is not the fact ; they are in- 
dividually knowable by their faces, forms, fleeces, 
and by other marks. This accords with our 
Saviour's reference to them in the tenth chapter 
of John. 

Sheep- washings and shearings are good 
enough subjects for the poet and the painter, 
but an account of them such as I, who am no 
artist, might write, would hardly interest the 
reader. I will, however, give the outlines of one 
of them, and leave it for him to fill them up and 
color them, pictorially, for himself. Imagine, 
then, a rude pen extemporized at the edge of a 
pleasing water ; a flowing brook, suppose, or a 
pond. Into this enclosure the sheep are hud- 
dled. The men who are to do the washing ap- 
pear in costumes suited to the occasion, that is 
to say, in the shabbiest of scarecrow clothes. 



I 



DERWENT. l8l 

These take their stand, waist-deep, in the water, 
while one on shore passes the sheep ill to them, 
one by one, as they are wanted. Boys incline 
to have a hand in this ; they like a touse with 
the creatures, and particularly with the ram ; 
and perhaps they enjoy a little their groundless 
apprehensions. There is no fun in it for the 
sheep. They have no aquatic inclinations, — are 
not fond of swimming, as the boys are ; and the 
chill of it ! — a whole fleece full, gallons, of water, 
which not many days since was ice. The barn- 
yard, where they have passed the winter, has 
soiled them, but, at the end of this ablution, they 
return to their pastures looking as white and 
clean as linen from the laundry, or, as we say, as 
white as wool. 

The shearing, which is done a few days later, 
is a relief to them if the weather be hot ; but if 
there comes a cold storm soon after it, such a 
change from their thick winter clothing to al- 
most none at all is too much for their comfort 
and for their health, and they must be housed. 

Lambs are interesting for their innocence and 
playfulness. Washed with the summer showers 
and dews, they are beautifully white and clean — 
emblems of purity. They delight to play in 



l82 DERWENT . 

troops. You will sometimes see scores of them, 
if so many can be mustered from the flock, scam- 
pering away together, like the hurry-skurry at 
an English fair. I remember counting sixty of 
them in such a troop, and observing their gam- 
bols. Now they are running with their might 
across a level ground ; directly they are lost 
sight of in a hollow ; in a minute or two more 
they are on the crest of a small stony knoll, 
standing thick and close, and making an admira- 
ble show of heads. Their high physical enjoy- 
ment is obvious ; how much the pleasure of the 
frolic is enhanced by the excitement of an emo- 
tional and social nature in them, — by mutual par- 
ticipation and companionship, — by emulation, 
perhaps, — our love for the animal creation may 
suggest, though our philosophy cannot tell us. 

These, in their play, are witnesses for the be- 
nevolence of the Creator. 



XVII. 



DOGS. 



THERE are people who do not like dogs. 
They have various reasons for their aver- 
sion to them : — " Dogs are untidy creatures," — 
" It costs too much to feed them," — " They run 
mad, sometimes." There are differences in dogs, 
as w^ell as in human kind, and there are some of 
the one, as also of the other, whose company is 
not desirable. But where the antipathy is to all 
dogs, indiscriminately, I am apt to suspect that 
the subject of it has not been fortunate in his, or 
her, canine acquaintance. 

A lady who had had a vague dislike of them 
from her childhood up, was surprised, one day, to 
find herself the owner of two, by gift from differ- 
ent donors. What could she do with them ? It 
would not be delicate to refuse acceptance of 
them. They were young, and of no vulgar 
breeds ; and were, she confessed, pretty crea- 
tures, — for dogs. Her children were pleased 

(185) 



l86 DERWENT. 

with them ; and, at any rate, they were on her 
hands for the present, and must be fed. She 
must let them stay till she could give them to 
friends who would be glad of them, and use them 
well. A few days pass, and she begins to think 
that she will keep one of them, and dispose of 
the other. But now comes the question which? 
They were so intelligent, so fond, so amusing in 
their play, so attached to her and the family, so 
unlike, and yet with such a balance of qualities 
between them, that, really, she said, it was hard 
to say which she preferred. She proposed to 
her husband that he should decide the matter ; 
he declined to do so, with a smile. He had 
never sympathized with her in her repugnance 
to dogs, and was amused with her perplexity. 
In fine, it took her a whole year — this lady who 
could never hear of having a dog — to make up 
her mind which of her two pets she would part 
with. 

Were I to write a disquisition on dogs, I would 
meet objections to them thus : A good dog pays 
his waj^, and more too, whether the trouble or 
the cost he makes you be regarded. You give 
him bones and refuse bits, such as a beggar at 



DERWENT. 187 

jour door would not accept, and for these see 
liow he compensates you with love and service. 
He heightens the pleasantness of your rambles 
with his company : you sleep the sounder for his 
vigils. He carries parcels for your children 
going on errands, greatly to their aid and his de- 
light. If you are a farmer, he saves you steps 
when laggard or wayward cattle are to be driv- 
en. If the hogs are in mischief, you have only 
to point with your finger and say St ! and your 
clover is quickly cleared of the grunting poach- 
ers. And what a promoter he is of good feeling 
in the house ! You see that group of mirth- 
loving children ; they are happy, as they are ; 
but let Banco come in among them, with his 
laughing eyes and wagging tail, and they are the 
happier for his company. Or are they out of 
humor, peevish, suffering ennui, call Banco in, 
and their tone will be changed. It is hardly in 
human nature, adult or juvenile, but especially 
in young natures, to continue long in ill-humor 
in the presence of a fond and noble dog. And 
then, his singular attachment to you. Human 
love excepted, there is no love so strong, 
constant, and unselfish as his. Who has not 
heard of most touching instances of the mourn- 



l88 DERVVENT. 

ing of dogs for their masters or other human 
friends ? 

And on the other hand, what fondness we con- 
ceive for them ! " I never desire to own an- 
other dog, because I would not feel again so 
badly for the loss of one," has been said a thou- 
sand times. " The misery of keeping a dog is his 
dying so soon," said Sir Walter Scott. I called, 
not long since, at a friend's house ; the ladies re- 
ceived me in their accustomed polite and wel- 
coming way, but with a quiet sorrowfulness in 
their manner which was not usual with them. 
Their eyes, evidently, had been wet with tears, 
and, indeed, the air of the house seemed almost 
funereal. Being seated in the parlor, and the cus- 
tomary commonplaces being through with, one 
of the young ladies said to me, " We are feeling 
sad to-day ; our poor Ponto was run over 
and killed at the depot this morning, and 
we have been having him brought home and 
buried." 

Slabs of marble, or other memorial monu- 
ments, are often placed at the graves of dogs. I 
know a gentleman, a man of genius and a schol- 
ar, who carved a statue of his Sappho to preserve 
her memory. 



DERWENT. 189 

As to our dogs, there have been more remark- 
able ones ; yet they had their particular charac- 
teristics, and being ours, and mixing them- 
selves as they do, more or less, with these 
home recollections, they claim some mention 
here. 

The earliest on my list was a large one, 
Trooper by name, belonging to my grandfather. 
He would come every day to see us, and, walk- 
ing in with the freedom of a friend, would look 
around for the 3^oung folks of the house, from 
whom lie was sure of a cheery welcome. Car- 
pets were fewer in those days than they are in 
these, and sanding floors, particularly kitchen 
floors, was a common thing. The sand was 
sprinkled on wet, and then drawn with a broom 
into wavy lines, or chequer-work, or whatever 
figures the maid's or the housewife's fancy 
choose to give it. It looked quite well so long 
as it stayed as the broom left it. But whenever 
Trooper sat down on it, with the merry group 
about him, he would sweep a clear half circle 
with his tail ; and it was like children, in the hu- 
mor of teasing Betty, to make him sit in as many 
places as they could. " Here, Trooper, sit here, 
and liere, and here." And so the nice sand car- 



IQO D E R WEN T. 

pet would soon be full of bared semicircles and 
prints of the dog's and children's feet. 

Trooper lived to be old, and my recollections 
of him are consequently distinct. His color was 
a rich dark brown, except on the breast, where it 
was mixed, or gray. I think he was a genuine 
specimen of that famous old breed, the mastiff, 
now rarely seen. He was remarkable for his 
fidelity as a watch-dog. 

Sachem, a young dog, showed symptoms of 
madness. They tied him up in an out-building 
to see how his malady would turn. I looked in 
upon him at a window. At sight of me he drew 
in his breath, nervously, and made me shudder, 
by what was between a sigh and a growl. He 
had to be killed. He affected me with a fear 
from which I could not get free in years, — 
the fear of mad dogs. When I was alone in 
solitary places, or was sent on errands in the 
dark, this apprehension of meeting a running 
rabid dog was the one nervous feeling which 
it took all my manliness to overcome; — so 
vivid and enduring are strong impressions, and 
especially those of pain and dread, on young 
minds. 



DERIVE NT. 191 

Splash was a water-dog, sleek, handsome, and 
good-tempered, but of no manner of service 
about the house or farm. Send him after a float- 
ing thing in the water, and he would delight to 
fetch it to you ; set him on hogs in mischief, and 
he would run among them and Hck each one in 
the face. None of the animals, not even the 
sheep, had the least respect for him as a police- 
dog. His great amusement was to swim across, 
and re-swim, the river; which he would do sev- 
eral times a day when work was going on in the 
meadows, — for he liked observers. He would 
aim to land at a particular point, a rock, on the 
other shore, that his eye fixed on ; in order to do 
which he must take into account the drift, or 
leeway, to which he would be subject from the 
current. A man would throw in a chip, or some 
light thing, to test it. As Splash could not do 
that, his way was to plunge in, no matter where, 
and swim off a little, and then return and run up 
or down the shore, as he had found the stream to 
require, to a point sufficiently high, or low, to 
justify his setting off. Sometimes, finding the 
force of the current greater than he had thought, 
as he would when there was a freshet, he would 
return ashore a second time, run up farther still, 



192 DERWENT. 

and set off again. On the other side his way was 
the same, except that there he had no need to 
tr}' which way the tide was running, having 
learned this already. 

Splash had no bad ways ; and, though he had 
no admirers, except perhaps for his beauty, nor 
enthusiastic friends, he had no enemies. He was 
a great listener to talk, and, you might think, an 
intelligent one ; for if the talk turned on him, 
with a laugh, he would leave the company. 

Gyp had more of the cur in his look and char- 
acter than any dog we owned ; — short-legged, 
long-bodied, dingy-haired, with a plodding gait. 
I never looked at him without wondering how 
we came to have such a dog. But he was by no 
means deficient in brains. He was my father's 
special favorite ; and he repaid his good-will 
with an.almost exclusive attachment to him, and 
by charging himself with the care of everything 
that belonged to him. If he left his chair a few 
minutes, of an evening, Gyp would take posses- 
sion of it, till he came to resume it. He was 
m3'steriously missing for several days, coming 
home once or twice in the time, and asking for 
food, and then immediately disappearing again. 



DERWENT. IQ3 

Being followed, he was found in a distant field 
keeping guard over a coat which his master had 
left there. 

He was singular in his resentments. My 
brother and I went out to Lakeside in a sleigh ; 
he went with us, self-invited. In getting past a 
snow-drift, the sleigh tipped and hit him. It did 
not hurt him much, but it so displeased him that 
he turned short round and went home. On our 
return, we f@und him mood}' and reserved. The 
collision was purel}- an accident, or if not, the 
fault was more his than ours ; but he chose to 
think it intentional on our part, and laying it up 
against us, with a persistency not usual with his 
kind, would never go anywhere with us after- 
ward. 

Loup was fond of " baying the moon," as Bru- 
tus calls it, — of baying the echoes, more probably, 
which is Peter Pindar's idea: — 

" Like some lone puppy, yelping all night long, 
That tires the very echoes with his tongue." 

Barking in the night is not a commendable habit 
in dogs; it disturbs wakeful children and nerv- 
ous people, j>leases nobody, and is, in fine, a 



1^4 DE R WENT. 

senseless practice. But I was obliged to Loup 
for it once. 

I was out on the river in a skiff, as it happened, 
at midnight. A thick fog had come on, not only 
enveloping all things in darkness deeper than 
night, but creating a thousand illusions and be- 
wilderments such as neither day nor night natu- 
rally knows. There was no moon, nor stars, in 
the sky ; no lights from windows ; no shore to 
the river, no east, west, north, or south, — no any 
way, nor anything, but fog and water. Where- 
abouts I was, or which way I might be rowing, 
or drifting, was past conjecture. 

But now, away in the distance — hark ! It is 
Loup at one of his midnight serenades. T know 
his voice, and it guides me to the shore as a fog- 
bell guides a vessel feeling her way into port. 

Flit, a hunting dog, of one of the hound vari- 
eties, was a slender, graceful creature, buff and 
cream-colored, with small, flapping, velvet ears. 
She had been trained by one of the Heathcote 
family, a cousin of Hiram. The Heathcotes 
were of the Nimrod order, mighty hunters, and 
had been so from the first settlement of the par- 
ish. One of them said to mc that he knew of no 



D EK WENT . 1^5 

music like the music of the hounds after a fox. 
Their barns were curiosities for the skins that 
were stretched on them to diy, or stuffed and 
hung about their windows, — of fox, raccoon, 
squirrel, muskrat, and woodchuck, and other 
kinds. Flit had the spirit of the family. Noth- 
ing pleased her like the sight of a fowling-piece, 
and no place delighted her like the wild woods. 
She would readily go with any one, even a 
stranger, so equipped, and for such a destination. 
In the woods you would get glimpses of her, 
coursing everywhere, and hear her light steps 
among the leaves, till by and bye a single slight 
bark would announce to you that she had treed 
a squirrel. Going to her, you find her sitting 
under a tall tree, looking up. You see the squir- 
rel on one of the topmost boughs, half hidden 
by the foliage, looking down at you quite com- 
posedly ; for he is sure he is too high for you. 
It is a gray squirrel, of course ; for Flit pays no 
attention to chipmunks and other trash. You 
raise your gun and bring it down ; Flit leaps and 
catches it before it reaches the ground, passes it 
to you, and is off at once for another. 

The woods, the dog, the game, the boy ! — these 
make a pictui-e of young life in the country, 



igS DERIVE NT. 

which for romance, healthfulness, and pleasure, 
the city cannot match. 

Jerry and Franco, being contemporaries and 
playmates, must be named together, though Jer- 
ry was the elder by two years or more. 

Jerry was a black-and-tan terrier; and the 
reader must permit me to say he was the finest 
specimen of his kind that I have ever seen. We 
had him of a dog-fancier, who, in training him, 
had done justice to his merits. Franco was re- 
ported to us as a cross of the Newfoundland with 
the Spaniel; and from his looks and instincts I 
should think the account correct, — allowing a 
predominance of the spaniel. 

Jerry was the handsomer dog of the two ; was 
more spirited and graceful in his movements, — 
Avas more brilliant every way, and more attrac- 
tive to strangers. But Franco had qualities, of 
a different kind, to match these. 

Jerry had an exuberance of life in him. In 
his ordinary trots his feet hardly touched the 
ground ; but to see him in one of his frolicsome 
runs round and round a field, you would fancy 
that he was some light thing carried by the 
wind. He would gambol in the same wild way 



DER WENT. 



197 



in the parlor, when allowed to do so; and he 
was allowed it often. Franco appeared to be 
equal]}' full of enjoyment in his own quiet way. 

Franco was remarkable for his simplicity and 
honesty. Though Jerr}-, always full of fun and 
nischief, was often playing tricks upon him, 
there was no end to his confiding good-nature. 
Jerry would pick up a stick, or an old shoe, and 
challenge him to get it away, if he could; and 
they would have .a long pull at it, Franco drag- 
ging Jerry by his superior weight, with a great 
deal of affected growling and showing of the 
whites of the eyes, on Jerry's part. 

That was play, and was so understood by both. 
But Jerry would find an old bleached bone, or a 
horn, and pretend to gnaw on it, as if it were 
something good, — too good to be shared with 
Franco, — though they always took their meals 
together very amicably and sociably — and if 
Franco presumed to go near him to see what it 
was that he was so very choice of, he would fly at 
him with a snarl. All make-believe, of course ; 
but Franco, like some people, did not understand 
jokes, or, if he did, did not resent them. 

Jerry had the peculiar instinct of his breed in 
the highest degree. No rat was safe on our 



iq8 derwent. 

premises for an hour. He would dig at a rat- 
hole with the greatest enthusiasm. Franco, look- 
ing on, would wonder what he was about ; he 
evidently thought the fellow must be out of his 
senses. Instincts do not understand each other. 
Sometimes Franco would put in with his paws, 
to help, though awkwardly, with no idea what 
so much furious digging meant ; which only 
bothered- Jerry. Franco had his hunting instinct, 
too ; but for another kind of game, the muskrat. 

Under chastisement, Jerry would crouch very 
low, and look up with a meek and penitent air ; 
but the next minute he would be off frisking and 
frolicking. He was too full of life to be unhappy 
long. Reprove Franco for a misdemeanor, and 
he would be cast down about it all day ; he could 
not be happy till with a cheery word you forgave 
him. Then he would be beside himself with joy. 

Jerry was not quarrelsome ; he lived on good 
terms with his canine neighbors generally ; nor 
did he ever fight with dogs of his own size. But 
if a big dog put on airs towards him, he was for 
a fight at once ; and it would go hard but the 
big dog would come out of the fray worsted. 
Jerry's way was to get under the belly of his ad- 
versary, and bite him in the fore legs, — keeping 



DERWENT. 199 

under him by his superior agility. In one in- 
stance only, while we had him, the large dog, a 
very savage one, such as wagon-driving peddlers 
often have with them, got him in his teeth ; and 
he gave him such a shaking that he was laid up 
by it for days, — yelping if you touched any part 
of him. But this did not subdue his spirit ; that 
was indomitable. 

We had not expected to keep both the dogs. 
One or the other of them must be disposed of. 
The question Jiow was easily settled, negativel}'' ; 
we would not sell them. The question which 
was often discussed without any decision being 
reached by the general mind of the family, or by 
any one of us. But at length it occurred to us 
that a lady, a friend of ours in Massachusetts, 
would like just such a dog as Jerry. The result 
was, that after some correspondence, Jerry, with 
his collar and chain, was put in charge of the 
mail-coach driver to be passed on, by a series of 
stages, to the place of his destination ; and the 
poor dog left us with a look that said, " For what, 
and whither, are they sending me into exile ?" 
A few days after we received a note which ended 
as follows: 



200 D E R WEN T. 

"Jerry arrived safely. He looked weary and 
anxious, but our manner soon reassured him. 
' Are you hungry, Jerry ?' Helen asked him ; and 
he answered, with his musical voice, in a single 
bark, ' Yes.' He is quite at home with us al- 
ready, and we are delighted with him. 
" Affectionately, your cousin, 

" Elizabeth Chapman." 

Franco missed his fond and sportiNJe playmate, 
— wondered what had become of him, — -looked 
wistfully around for him, — woke up at every 
mention of his name. He would make a lookout- 
station of the wood-pile in our yard, and sat, 
watching and listening, on the highest part of it. 

Franco had a fixed dislike of boys. It was 
hard for a boy to attract him in any way ; but to 
girls he gave his confidence freely. I suppose 
that the reason of this was, that boys had thrown 
stones at him, mischievously, just to scare him ; 
or had been otherwise uncivil to him. Girls did 
not do so. He showed this partiality for them 
everywhere, to strangers as well as to those of 
his acquaintance, provided they were not untidi- 
ly dressed. We were riding some miles out of 
town one day ; on a door-stone sat a neatly-dress- 



DERIVE NT. 20I 

ed little miss intently reading. She raised her 
eyes to us as we passed, and let them fall again 
on her book. Franco stole up to her and just 
lapped her cheek. I should have been sorry 
for his rudeness, if I had not seen that she was 
not displeased by it at all, but only smiled after 
the offender as he trotted away from her; which 
gave me a good impression of the child. 

He would be civil to any one, however appar- 
eled ; but a person genteelly dressed, especially 
a lady, would receive a rather over-demonstra- 
tive welcome- from him. I do not, however, 
speak of this as a thing peculiar to Franco ; I 
think it belongs to all dogs that make any pre- 
tensions to respectability. I have a missionary 
friend in Siam, who tells me that dogs there give 
the missionaries much annoyance on account of 
their dress ; which, being European, and not the 
native, is in the dogs' view barbarous. 

Franco disliked the katydids. I heard him 
muttering and growling about the house in a 
singular low way, one bright evening, and went 
out to see what the matter was. He was peering 
and gazing up among the trees and vines, some- 
times barking a little, sotto voce, as well as growl- 
ing, and seemed curious to discover what the 



202 D E R WENT. 

jargon was, and whence it proceeded ; for there 
was nothing to be seen. He turned to me to 
know. They are katydids, Franco, — nothing but 
katydids ; — noisy things, but they'll do no harm." 
They had just come for the season in unusual 
force, and this was the first of his acquaintance 
with them. He got used to them, but never 
liked them, evidently regarding them as a set of 
crazy, cracked-voiced disturbers of night and 
moonshine. 

He could never be content to go to bed with- 
out a boil soir to every member of the family. He 
would come in early in the evening, pass around 
among us, lap each one with his tongue on the 
hand, or in the face if he could steal such a lib- 
erty, and immediately retire to his lodgings in 
the wood-house, to which he had access through 
a swing door. 

He was extremely fond of the water. He 
would plunge in with a whine of gladness, — 
sometimes from a considerable height, as from a 
bridge or wharf, which dogs will seldom do, — 
and would swim about barking with delight, and 
scouring the surface for floating things to fetch 
ashore. If you lost a hat, or an oar, overboard 
from a boat, he would recover it for you ; and I 



DER WENT. 



203 



have no doubt he would have saved a drowning 
child, or that he might have been easily trained 
to acts of that kind. 

Sundays, — no other days, — he invariably spent 
away from home. He might not go to church 
with us, and it was dull staying alone. He knew, 
from our manner, when the day came, and with- 
out waiting for us to go, would take himself off in 
advance of the church-going hour. Sometimes 
he would pass the day with his friend and neigh- 
bor, Don, the only dog acquaintance he culti- 
vated ; but oftener, when the season favored, he 
would resort to the creeks and hunt muskrats, 
and bring them home for us to see He might 
have dug them out of their holes, but probably 
he caught them swimming, being able to swim 
faster than they could. 

One morning he was dead. We had noticed, 
the evening before, that he seemed languid and 
spiritless ; but the day had been excessively hot, 
and we thought nothing of it. Alas ! poor Fran- 
co ! How often has a human being been mourn- 
ed less sincerely, if not less worthily, than you ! 
So fine-tempered, intelligent, companionable, — 
with some amusing oddities, — we shall not soon, 
nor often, see your like. 



204 



DE R WENT. 



We continued to hear from Jerry occasionally. 
x\ friend of Mrs. C, Mrs. North, took such a lik- 
ing to him that she gave him to her. Our last 
intelligence of him came in a letter from Mrs. 
C, from which the following is an extract : 

"Jerry has departed. The fire of his spirit 
was unquenched to the last, but his bodily infirm- 
ities were so great that they pained the hearts 
of his friends ; yet not a thought had they but 
that he must be kept and cherished in the family. 
But at length his sufferings increased so much 
that it became evident that Jerry must retire. 
And now, what would be the most easy and hon- 
orable mode of his exit ? A family consultation 
was held, and it was decided that an opiate 
should be administered, and that he should be 
shot by an expert marksman ; which was done. 

" Gertrude, the only daughter at home, was 
about to make a visit to Greenfiqld, and told 
them that the deed must be done while she was 
away ; and that when she came home she never 
wished to hear his name mentioned, she should 
feel so badly. But immediately upon her return, 
she proposed that the name of the new dog 
should be changed, and that it should be Jerry. 
She has just visited us, and in speaking of it, she 



DERWENT. 205 

said she was glad his name was not changed, for 
he had not the qualities that Jerry had, — that he 
never would be the dog that Jerry was, — that 
Jerry was 'a remarkable dog i — upon which I ob- 
served she had especial use for her handkerchief. 
Helen laughed at her heartily, and told her that 
she had several times heard her speak of Jerry, 
and she always ended with tears, and ' Jerry 
was a remarkable dog.' Gertrude was his faith- 
ful nurse, when he was almost killed in that sally 
upon the big dog. [Not the ferocious itinerant 
before mentioned, but another of his class.] No 
doubt Jerry would have thought his life well 
sacrificed, if he could but have beaten that big 
dog." 



XVIII. 



BIRDS. 



EVERY intelligent country boy is, to a cer- 
tain extent, and in his way, an Audubon. 
He will make you a catalogue of some dozens of 
birds, and will tell you all about most of them. 
He will not do it in a sci entitle way, like a pro- 
fessed ornithologist ; for it is not as a savant that 
he has noticed them, but only as a curious, ob- 
servant boy. It is only so that I shall speak of 
a number of them here. 

Birds enliven our country homes. While I 
am writing these lines, flashes of light are thrown 
in upon me from their wings, flitting past my 
windows. At day-break they charm us with 
their music, and again at evening ; and all day 
they are about us, with their affairs and chatter- 
ing. These may be called the homestead birds ; 
they like to be among human dwellings. In the 
fields and woods we have others of different 
kinds ; and about the waters, others still ; so that 

(209) 



2IO DERWENT. 

everywhere, and in great variety, we have their 
company. 

A large portion of them come and go with the 
seasons. These are the summer birds. The 
winter birds stay with us the year round. And 
they contribute much to the pleasantness of the 
season of frost and snows. I do not say they 
abate the dreariness of the winter months ; for 
those months, wisely used, are not dreary in the 
country ; they are delightful. 

The bluebirds, forerunners of the spring, are the 
earliest to come. We announce their arrival to 
each other, — " The bluebirds are come," — as we 
do other good news. We are glad to see them. 
I have dates of the times of their appearance here 
in Connecticut ; which in some years was in the 
end of February, but more often not till about 
the middle of March. Even then they are too 
early for their comfort, in most instances. There 
will be deep snows and cold winds coming later 
than that ; for March will generally be March to 
the end of its portion of the calendar, and, not 
content with that, will often supplement itself 
with a tedious page from April. We look out 
at our windows then, and say, "The poor blue- 
birds." They betake themselves to such shelters 



DER WENT. 211 

as they may find, and we see no more of them 
till a sunn}^ morning welcomes them abroad 
again. 

Next come the robins. Others follow these, 
till all the families and tribes are here. The 
latest are the swallows. These are obliged to 
defer their coming until the season is well ad- 
vanced, because of the way they live; their food 
consisting of insects floating in the air, which 
they catch flying. Of all seasons the dog-days 
appear to be their harvest-time, — those hot in- 
sect-breeding days, — and it continues till the 
autumn frosts destroy their game. And of all 
hours, the evening twilight appears to be their 
favorite one. You will see them skimming the 
air, with great activity, between sundown and 
dark. They are taking their supper then. How 
keen their eye must be, to see and catch upon 
the wing, and in the dusk, so small an object as 
the mote which they are after ! Would we that 
our eyes were as acute and microscopic as theirs ? 
The wish were an unwise one ; for so we should 
see more and other things than would be agree- 
able. 

The robin begins to sing with the first faint 
dawn of the day. If, awaking while it is but 



212 DERWENT 

faintly light, I am doubtful whether it is morning, 
the robin's song assures me that it is. Most 
birds wait till broader day before they commence. 
1 know of but one that is earlier than the robin. 
You will hear the little hair-bird trilling, in his 
small, brief way, long before day-break; and his 
notes are so soft and plaintive that you might 
imagine he was lonesome, or had rested poorly, 
and was weary of the night. 

The robin sings but little in the middle of the 
day, being busy then about his food and nest- 
building, or, later in the season, in caring for his 
mate and young ones ; but towards evening he 
renews his melodies, and sings the day out, as he 
sings it in. So ought we all to do, and so we 
may, if we have an innocence and a trust like the 
robin's. 

The cat-bird has no particular time of day for 
singing ; he sings whenever he is in the humor 
for it, or has a few minutes' leisure, — sings 
snatches of tunes, if he has not time for more. 
He will often give expression to his gladness in 
his melodies, when the sun shines out again after 
a soft summer shower. He is the sweetest of all 
our homestead warblers. The wood-thrush may 
excel him ; but I do not reckon the thrushes 



D ER W E X T. 



213 



among the homestead birds, they being birds of 
the bush. He sings with more spirit than the 
robin, with more varied notes, and with a great 
deal of emotion, — if action be evidence of emotion. 
The robin sits still, and sings like an automaton 
or a music-box ; the cat-bird accompanies his song 
with lively movement of his body and wings. 

The cat-bird has three voices; his cat-like call 
(whence his name) ; his cluck, which appears to 
be conversational, and meant, like his viczv, for 
his mate only ; and his song, which is for all who 
care to hear. The robin has but two, a peep, and 
a song. 

The quail is an interesting bird. Not for his 
plumage, or his music; for he is neither beautiful 
nor musical ; though he has a kind of plaint which 
may pass for a warble, or a song. He lives about 
the farm, but is no thief, or poacher, on it, as too 
many birds are, one is sorry to sa}'. He will not 
rob you of your cherries, like the robin ; nor pull 
up your sprouting corn like the crow ; nor waste 
and steal your green corn, like the blackbird ; 
nor waylay your bees at the hive, like the king- 
bird ; but he feels at liberty to glean in your 
stubble-field, and will sometimes venture into 
your barn-yard. 



214 



DE R IV EN T. 



Quails interest me by their habits. They 
appear to have a peculiar fondness for the do- 
mestic state, or, at least, a longer-lasting love 
for it than other birds have. Most birds dismiss 
their young from their care and company as soon 
as they are old enough to leave the nest, and help 
themselves ; but the quail family keep together 
all through the season, not separating, I think, 
before the pairing-time of the next year. You 
see a flock of them, a dozen, or more, rise from 
the ground, fly a little way, and light down 
again : that is a family of quails. They always 
fly low, in a kind of a hurried, hovering way, 
like hens. They have not lightness of form and 
strength of wing for a high flight, or a long one. 
Hence they cannot be migratory. We see them 
quite late in the season, after snows come, and I 
think they stay the winter through, finding, 
during the extreme rigors of it, such retreats 
and shelters as birds know of better than we. 
He that feeds them shelters them. Familiar as 
they are to us, and we to them, about our 
grounds, the)^ are always wild and timid. I 
never heard of one of them being tamed. They 
will sometimes allow you to come within a few 
yards of them without flying, only running and 



D ER WENT. 215 

skulking. If you come suddenly upon a young 
brood of them, they will set up a peeping and 
run in alarm and hide themselves in the grass, or 
bushes, like chickens that are too big for their 
mother's wings to cover them. One thing I have 
to remember with regret in reference to this sort 
of birds : I used to set snares and traps for them, 
and was delighted with my success in taking 
them. The snares, catching them by the neck, 
strangled them. That was a cruel way. The 
trap, which was an open shallow box, set- with a 
figure four, dropped over them without hurting 
them ; but being so wild and timid by nature, 
they were in a wonderful fright, and uttered 
cries of terror, when I put my hands in to take 
them out. They are excellent food, and it is no 
doubt lawful to kill them for that use, if needed 
for it ; but, for myself, I would now rather see 
them in the fields, and be hungr}' than see them 
on my table. 

The quail has a kind of whistling note which is 
thought to resemble the words '■^ more wet /' and 
some people regard this as prognostic of rain. 
But I think that careful note-takers of the 
weather will tell you, that, like many other 
signs, it signifies nothing reliable, — nothing un- 



2i6 DERWENT. 

less this, that birds, like all sensitive air-breath- 
ing creatures, feel the effects of atmospheric 
changes, and have their ways of showing their 
consciousness of them, whether it be before a 
storm, , or in, or after one. If this in them fore- 
tokens wet, or other weather, so, often,' do the 
sensations and behavior of human people. 

The blue jay, used to be and still is, one of my 
favorites. His plumage is of the gayest. His 
proud crest, which he wears with spirit, lowering 
and elevating it at will, would befit the cap of a 
high military officer. His voice is less soft than 
the flute's, it is true, but it is loud, clear and 
startling, and, to my ear, decidedly musical ; — 
heard oftenest on a still, sunny autumn day. 
His haunts are the woodlands, and he stays the 
winter through. Oi \\\q gcmis corpus, the natural- 
ists say ; but there is nothing corvine, or crow- 
like, about him, that I can see, — being no natural- 
ist, however. 

Those busy climbers iscansores) the wood- 
peckers, all the varieties of them, are pleasing 
birds. I .love to watch them winding round 
trees, on a winter day, or a spring day, looking 
for insects, or larvae, in the bark ; and to hear 
the larger ones making the woods ring with 



D ER WENT. 



217 



their rapid hammering on dry, or hollow trees. 
These are winter birds. All of them are pretty, 
some of them are beautiful. I would not willingly 
miss the woodpeckers from my early recollec- 
tions, nor break off acquaintance with them 
now. 

The whip-poor-will may be classed with our 
birds of song, or not, as people fanc3\ For my- 
self, I used to feel that he enhanced the lonesome- 
ness of a lonesome evening,- or a lonesome place, 
more than he charmed a cheerful one, — that his 
song, if song it should be called, was too long 
kept up to be not wearisome, and that one at a 
time was better than two, or more of them. Two 
not far apart, vying with each other, like Menal- 
cas and Damoetas, make themselves ridiculous, — 
singing the same tune, at the same pitch, but 
keeping no time. Where many of them are 
mingling their voices together, the effect is 
singular. So exactly alike, the}'- seem like 
the same sound multiplied, or like so many 
echoes confounding each other. I remember a 
visit I made with one of my sisters to some 
friends in Cornwall. The house was on the edge 
of a wide circular valley, — hills on every side, — 
with here and there a dwelling. As evening 



2l8 DERW EN T. 

came on, the whole valley became vocal with 
whip-poor-wills. There must have been scores, 
if not hundreds of them ; it seemed a whip-poor- 
will camp meeting. The only young lady of the 
house proposed to give my sister a room which 
she had herself occupied, a front one over the 
portico ; but she feared she would be disturbed 
there b}^ " that tiresome whip-poor-will " which 
had taken possession, she said, of their front 
steps for its singing-place. It came every night, 
after the lights were out, and kept coming, for all 
that she could do to drive it away. She had 
clapped and shouted, and pounded on the house ; 
she had carried up armfuls of wood to throw 
down at it. All in vain. It would go off for a 
little while, and then be back again whip-poor- 
willing away as long as it liked. My sister, 
amused at the idea of such a contest, accepted 
the room ; but came down laughing in the morn- 
ing, confessing a defeat ; for her serenader, she 
said, was fresh and wakeful, and she tired. Do 
not judge the bird severely; there are just such 
human visitors, — always back again upon your 
dooi'-stone, in spite of the plainest intimations 
that you would prefer to be alone. 

The whip-poor-wills of the whole valley kept 



D E R WENT. 



219 



up their grand choral performances till about 
midnight, when, with one consent, they ceased ; 
and then, all at once, the air was full of night- 
hawks, — jar, jar, jar, like so many spinning- 
wheels in the heavens ; and these held on till day- 
break. They may have been catching fireflies, 
in their swoops. 

The brown thrasher, one of the wide-spread 
thrush famil}', a fine singer, is of about the robin's 
size, but more gracefully moulded, and more 
active. I have to relate an incident which befell 
one of these birds. I had heard of birds being 
charmed by snakes, but supposed this to be an 
imaginary notion. The fact that snakes did 
sometimes gorge themselves with birds was 
hardly to be questioned* A man told me that 
he found one in a snake that he killed which was 
so large that it was a wonder how the reptile 
ever got it down his throat, the bird being whole 
and unmasticated. In fact, he had not got it 
more than half-way down his gullet, and was so 
bulged out and deformed by it, that he could 
hardly crawl, and was the more . easily killed. 
But how does the snake catch the bird ? Does 
he coil himself and spring at it, as his manner is 
with an enemy? I saw one some yards up a 



220 DERWENT. 

tree, his tail twined round the body of it, and his 
head resting on a limb ; he could not coil and 
spring then, if birds were his object, as not im- 
probably they were. The incident I have 
alluded to was this. Passing along the sunny 
edge of a wood, I was arrested by a brown 
thrasher that was acting very singularly. It was 
hopping about on the ground, with its feathers 
ruffled, uttering cries apparently of distress. I 
wondered what ailed it, but directly I saw a large 
black snake a few yards from it, lying at its full 
length, with its small, piercing eyes fixed upon 
it, and its fork}^ tongue playing in its mouth. 
The bird would hop toward it and from it, and 
to this side and that, and on its scaly back for an 
instant, but all the while with its head towards 
it. It was evidently terrified, but seemed unable 
to fly from the object of its dread. I looked on 
for some minutes, and then broke the charm by 
throwing stones at the snake ; which ghded into 
the bushes, while the bird found his wings, and 
flew away. Now this, if any, may be taken as 
an instance of a snake-charmed bird. But what 
was the nature of the charm ? Evidently it was 
that kind of stupefaction, that utter loss of self- 
possession, which sudden and extreme fear pro- 



D ER WENT. 221 

duces. The bird was beside itself through sur- 
prise and terror. Just so charmed, fascinated, 
lost to all self-helpfulness, are men, sometimes. 
Read accounts of people that are killed on rail- 
roads, for instance ; some of whom have survived 
he shock long enough to tell us that the}'- saw 
the danger, were perfectly aware of it, but were 
so surprised and stupefied by it, that they had no 
mental power to save themselves by stepping off 
the track, if they were on it, or by pulling a rein, 
if they were in a carriage, but stood stock-still, 
or drove madly on, as the case might be, in spite 
of whistle, bell, and shouting. And here let it 
not seem out of place to remark, that the training 
of children to a habit of entire self-possession, 
under all circumstances, is of no slight import- 
ance as a part of their education. 

Snakes are such hateful and disgusting things, 
that I do wrong to mix them in with the better 
company of birds, as I have done ; but we have 
the charmed bird's deliverance for compensation. 
< I confess a pai^tiality for the crow ; or, rather, 
I have little of the common prejudice against 
him. He is with me a character. I like his slow, 
solemn way of flying ; it amuses me. I like his 
grave and stately gait. I like his " caw," which 



222 DERIVE NT. 

has, for him and his fellows, a social, if not a 
musical significance. Perhaps he uses it as a 
signal, to let his people know that he is on his 
way, or where he is. I like his suspiciousness 
and cunning better than I like those qualities in 
human kind ; or, at least, I dislike them less. I 
cannot say that I admire his dietetic tastes in all 
particulars. Perhaps I have some pity for his 
leanness ; since that is proverbially his actual 
condition, if it be not his normal one. " As 
poor as a crow." There is beauty in his jet 
black, glossy coat. The social habits of his kind 
amuse me. Observe the straggling, wide-apart 
way in which they fly, when a number of them 
are passing over together ; than which nothing 
looks more unsociable ; yet hear how vivaciously 
and noisily they caw together, when they con- 
gregate at some rendezvous of theirs, such as a 
woody hill-top, where they like to rest awhile, 
or some great swamp, where they sleep. The 
crow is about the shyest of all birds naturally ; 
it is difficult to get a shot at him ; but once tame 
him, and get his confidence, and he is afraid of 
nothing. He will fly in at your window, light 
on your table, or on the book you are reading, 
caw in your face, and fly out again. Children 



DE RW E N T. 



223 



can make a playmate of him. Curious things 
are told of the crow, tamed and wild. He is on 
bad terms with the farmer ; he steals his corn. 
It is true, he makes some compensation for his 
larcenies ; he destro)-s grubs and other creatures 
of the ground that are injurious to crops. But 
the cultivator is not satisfied with this ; he re- 
gards and treats him as a thief, a depredator, 
simply, and takes a variety of methods with him. 
If he can but once get at him with his gun and 
shoot him, he makes an example of him by hang- 
ing him up in the field. He dresses up scare- 
crows to frighten him. You may have sometimes 
seen a white string stretched from post to post 
round a field. The theory of such festooning is 
this : it is the manner of the crow to light upon 
the fence and look about a little, before descend- 
ing to the ground ; he cannot light on the string, 
and is, besides, suspicious of it, and so keeps off. 
The crow has a persecutor in the kingbird. 
You will see a pair of these birds, and sometimes 
three or four of them, chasing him from one 
hill-top to another, all the while pouncing on 
him, and picking his back and wings. He is ex- 
ceedingly worried by them, and makes a loud, 
angry caw every time they touch him. He 



>24 



D E R WEN T. 



lights on a tree to get rid of them ; they light 
on another and wait for him to start again. He 
can neither escape from them nor punish them, 
because of their superior lightness and activity. 
They would not dare to pester a hawk so. 
Sometimes a crow is picked so bare and sore by 
them, and is so tired, that he can fly no longer. 
One of our men found one in that pitiable plight, 
and brought it home to us to show. It was not 
able to rise from the ground. What the motive 
of the kingbird is, my reader can divine as well 
as I. Perhaps they like the excitement of the 
chase, and make a frolic of it. More probably 
they dislike the crow in their neighborhood, and 
mean to clear the coast of him, being afi-aid of 
him for their eggs and nestlings ; for, among the 
many bad things he is charged with, one is that 
he is a despoiler of the nests of the small birds. 

The panic among birds and hens which the 
hawk produces is worthy of observation as an 
instance of a fear which is purely one of instinct. 
The hens and the birds may have never seen a 
hawk, may know nothing of his character by 
observation or experience, yet let but the shadow 
of one of those sharks of the air fall on them, 
and instantly the birds fl}' to some retreat and 



DERIVE NT. 225 

are as bush as death, while the hen giv^es an 
alarm which her chickens understand, and they 
run for shelter under her wings. 

It was in connection with a panic of this kind 
that a mischance happened to our neighbor, old 
Mr. Heathcote, a veteran hunter. Coming home 
from one of his fowling excursions on horseback, 
he heard his hens squalling as he approached the 
house, and saw the hawk sailing around ov^er his 
head. Leaning back in the saddle, he pointed 
his gun at it, fired, lost his balance, and fell over 
backwards to the ground, much to the amuse- 
ment of his family, who ran out to see. Neither 
the marksman nor the hawk was hurt. 

I adverted to the blackbirds in speaking of the 
meadow. Such multitudes of them as we then 
had, settling on a field of unripe corn, would 
make sad work of it. I was often set to watch 
them. It was tedious business, sitting on a knoll 
or a rock for a watch - tower, dreaming day- 
dreams and whittling; making corn-stalk fiddles, 
and wishing they had more music in them, or 
mimic boats, and wishing they were ships, and I 
on board of them, — always wishing. Sometimes 
I had the dog for compan}-, and for help also, for 
he would run in and bark among the birds ; and 
15 



226 ' D :: /■; went. 

sometimes a gun, but with powder onlj-, till I 
was old enough to be trusted with a pouch of 
shot, too. No place was lonesome .with a dog, 
nor tiresome with a gun. My brother and T 
made clack-mills to scare the thieves ; but there 
must be wind to work them, and often the winds 
would sleep while the birds were awake. 

The red-winged blackbirds are beautiful for 
their crimson, epauletted shoulders. No two 
colors could be more finely contrasted than their 
deep red and their glossy jet. These are a dis- 
tinct species, less numerous than the one above 
mentioned ; the crow blackbirds are another, 
and the swamp blackbirds, of a rusty black, an- 
other still. 

Perhaps there is no bird that more fills a 
young imagination than the owl. I suspect that 
any child with an illustrated copy of the Burial 
of Cock Robin in his hand will tell you so. His 
grotesque appearance ; his solitariness ; his sus- 
picious, if not culpable, love of the night rather 
than the day ; his hootings ; — these, and such 
like things, make the shape and coloring of the 
picture he has to sit for. I remember being out 
alone in my boyhood, on a solitary hill-top, in 
the middle of a profoundly still summer night — 



DER WENT. 227 

it SO happened to me — listening to one of them : — 
Who-00 ! who-00 ! — I stood and hearkened with 
a feeling that might be called romantic. 

The screech-owl has nothing commendable 
about him, that I know of; or certainly he is not 
a praiseworthy character on the whole. Nothing 
is more sinister than his look and attitude, in a 
state of repose ; and his deeds agree with this. 
His screechings at night are execrable. I know 
of nothing comparable to them, except the 
screechy, screamy way in which some ladies 
sing, telling us it is artistic. It is said for him, 
that he catches mice in barns. That may be 
true ; for he gets into, barns, often, and dozes 
away the da}^ there ; but his merits in that par- 
ticular are more than balanced by his demerits in 
others : he gets into hen-roosts and dove-cots, 
too. We had a dove-house full of the most 
beautiful varieties of doves — white, buff-colored 
and changeable, fan-tailed and pantaletted. One 
morning we noticed that they were all out upon 
the roofs of the house and bam, with their necks 
stretched, and looking very wild. I went into 
the dove-house to see what the matter was ; and 
there, squat in a corner, I found a screech owl — a 
barn-i)\v\, to give him his laudatory title as a 



228 D i: R W E A' T. 

mouse- killei". I had a pet dove, among the rest. 
That lay dead, with a hole in its breast. I secur- 
ed Mr. Screech, and, without compunction, ap- 
plied the lex talionis to him, life for life. The 
doves' home was spoiled for them. They had 
been a happy family, but now they quit their house, 
and would never enter it again. 

Contrast these owl voices — the hootings and 
the screechings, with the voices of smaller, gen- 
tler birds, — the liquid voice of the chewink, the 
soft notes of the phiebe, the lively chatter of the 
chickadee, and most (^f all, the plaintive cooing 
of the turtle dove. 

The turtle-dove is one of the most interesting 
of birds, the very personification of gentleness 
and modesty ; seen in pairs, never in flocks, and 
rather rarely seen at all ; loving the deep seclu- 
sion of the woods. 

I have an anecdote to give of the chewink. 
We had a hen with chickens. Being a barn-yard 
fowl, she thought she had, of course, the freedom 
of tr.e barn-yard. But as often as she went into 
it she hastened out again in great excitement, 
with her feathers erect, throwing her head this 
way and that as if she was dodging something, 
and clucking her brood along as fast as she could. 



DERIVE XT. 229 

What was the matter? Why, a Mrs. Chewmk 
had made her nest on a low branch of a pear-tree 
that overhung the yard, and, being ignorant of 
the character of Madam Hen, and concerned for 
the safety of her young ones, was scaring her off 
by flying at and chasing her, and threatening to 
pick out her eyes. 

The waterfowls give interest to the localities 
which are their haunts. You see the wild ducks 
paddling and diving in the creeks and flooded 
marshes ; the stilted crane and heron, wading 
along the channel banks and flats ; the bold, shot- 
defying kingfisher, watching from his wharf-post, 
or hovering over the water for a dive; and 
sometimes the wild geese, descending from their 
long and hungry flight to rest and feed a little on 
the river. 

There was a fowl, lean and long, sometimes 
seen, but not often, in our fens and wet meadows, 
which people called the stake-driver, from the 
sound it made ; which was hke that of the dri- 
ving of a stake into hollow or quaggy ground 
with an axe. It was curious to hear. 

An ornithological collection for a museum, 
needs not only the birds themselves for its com- 
pleteness, but their nests and eggs. Their in- 



230 DERIVE NT. 

stincts are shown in their nests. We see in 
thesC; foresight, contrivance, adaptation, skill, 
taste ; and if human hands had made them" w^e 
should say they were evidence of mind. But 
we observe that each individual builds hke every 
other individual of its species, and each species 
after a fashion of its own ; and that this they do 
season after season, devising nothing new, bor- 
rowing nothing from each other, making- no im- 
provements, — blindly following, in short, a fixed 
law. And herein is the difference between in- 
stinct and mind: mind invents; instinct does not. 
There is mind concerned in the case, but it is a 
higher intelligence than that of the birds. 

Different birds select different situations for 
their nests, and construct them in different ways, 
and of different materials, according to the habits 
and requirements of their respective kinds. 
Some build on trees ; some in and under bushes ; 
some, under shelving rocks ; some, in holes 
which they find, or peck for themselves, in old 
trees ; some, in barns ; some in chimneys ; some, 
in the open, bare ground ; some, in the face of 
high banks ; some, the water birds, large and 
small, upon unfrequented islands, or other undis- 
turbed localities in the vicinity of waters. 



D ER WENT. 



231 



Suppose we examine a few of their nests, 
and see how they are made. 

Here is one of the robin's ; I find it on an 
apple-tree near the house. It is composed of 
coarse materials, to begin with, such as strong 
stems of grass. These are mixed with mud, or 
clay ; which holds them together, and gives 
shape and firmness to the structure, or, rather, 
the straw holds the clay together and keeps it in 
place till the sun dries and hardens it, as the 
straw and stubble did in the brick-making in 
Egypt. This is the foundation. Then the lining. 
This is made with fine dried grass, or anything 
that is soft and warm. 

The frame of the little hair-bird's nest is of fine 
fibrous roots dextrously wov^en together. The 
lining is of hair, of which barn-yards and stables 
afford an abundant supply. Long horse-hairs, 
from the mane, or tail, work in, in coils, nicely. 
It is this hair-work that gives the bird its name. 
There is no prettier nest than this. The apple- 
tree appears to be this bird's favorite place for 
building. 

The hang-bird, or Baltimore oriole, suspends 
her nest from a pensile twig at the extreme end 
of a high branch ; the elm being often chosen for 



232 



DE K WENT. 



her purpose. It is made of fine, pliant materials, 
and is in shape like a silk purse with an opening 
in its side. It is a curious thing, so snug and 
cozy, and so airily and gracefully placed. Every 
breeze rocks the hang-bird's cradle, and a proper 
lullaby for her would be that old one, " Rock-a- 
by, baby, on the tree-top," which used to be sung 
to our little ones. 

The barn-swallows make their nests of stiff, ad- 
hesive mud, or clay, attaching them to beams 
and rafters, and lining them with feathers, pro- 
ducing mud-wall cottages luxuriously furnished. 
I have often sent a feather off upon the wind to 
see them chase it. Sometimes two or three 
would be after it together. 

The chimney-swallow's nest is a very rude and 
cheap affair, of coarse, short sticks, as big as 
pipe stems, gummed together and to the flue; 
in shape like the half of a tea-saucer, with no 
lining ; as ribbed as a gridiron ; as black as soot. 
These are the chimney-sweeps among birds, as 
their cousins, the bank-swallows, are the delvers. 
Their dress, which is black, or blue-black, is suit- 
ed to the profession. 

It is a fit description of the crow's nest to say, 
that it is a common synonym for brush-heap. 



D ER WEN T. 



233 



The eagle's is like the crow's, but larger and of 
larger timber. 

Such of the birds as require soft linings for 
their nests, are sharp and eager in their search 
for stuffs for them. They will pick up bits of 
thread, slack-twisted strings, shreds and clip- 
pings made by scissors, and all similar things, as 
well as soft dried grasses. And if you have any 
small, delicate article of dress to dry, or bleach, 
it behooves you to see that it is not made off 
with. A lace collar which my sister Alice had 
put out thus; was gone when she went for it. 
She charged it to the birds : and, to substantiate 
the charge, she put some slips of muslin in the 
same place, and these she saw them take. Yet 
they do not, to my knowledge, steal the stuffs 
they want from each other's nests. It might be 
convenient for the swallow to appropriate to her- 
self the feathers of a neighbor swallow's nest ; or 
for the cat-bird to take the robins; but this does 
not appear to be consistent with their ideas of 
good morals and good neighborhood. But to 
take things which belong to human kind is with 
them another affair. I used to tie our raspberry 
canes and grape-vines with coarse strings and 
candle-wicking, and wondered who untied them 



234 DERWENT. 

and carried off the bindings, till I discovered that 
the birds did it. You may propose to compound 
with them, or buy them off, as I have often done, 
by tying handfuls of cotton to the stakes and lat- 
tices, for their preference and use ; but you get 
nothing by this ; they carry off your cotton, 
strings and all, and untie your vines besides. 

The social affinities and habits of the feather- 
ed tribes are worthy of observation. 

A flock of birds is a social company. Such of 
them as do not live, or move, in flocks, still like 
to be in communities, or neighborhoods, of their 
kind. They sustain, with constancy, the sepa- 
rateness of their species, being no amalgamation- 
ists. You never see a flock comprising different 
sorts. Even such as are of the same genus, al- 
most of the same species, and of similar modes 
of living, as the different kinds of swallows, and 
of ducks, avoid all mixing with each other. 
Within their own kinds they have sympathies as 
well as affinities. If you catch a young robin, 
not fully weaned, not only its parents will be 
alarmed by its cry, but all the neighbor robins 
will come flutteiing and peeping around you in 
wild distress. The migratory birds come and go 
in companies. Thc^^ often congregate in very 



DER WEN T. 235 

large flocks, on the eve of a movement of this 
kind. I saw a line of swallows not less than an 
eighth of a mile long, and as straight as an arrow, 
flying high in the air, in single file and close or- 
der, going southwesterly, or parallel with the 
coast, being a migratory company, of course. 
And one curious thing they did ; passing over a 
brook, every one of them, in its turn, beginning 
with the foremost, dropped down to it in an easy 
curve, like that of a festoon, and just dipped its 
bill in it, rippling it with its wings, and rose 
again to its place in the line. It was an exceed- 
ingly graceful and beautiful movement. Who 
appointed the rendezvous for those birds ? Who 
sent out the word? Who marshalled them, des- 
ignated their leader, and made the sign that put 
them in motion ? Or did they commence the 
flight with a few, and receive accessions by the 
way ? 



XIX. 



Studies in the Woods. 



THERE are few people who do not find 
something to interest them in woods. 
Some, as the botanist and the artist, resort to 
them for .ends pertaining to their professions: 
the majority go for recreation only ; they find a 
" pleasure in the pathless woods," and not much 
besides, — not suspecting how much they have 
around them for profitable and pleasing study. 
Solomon " spake of trees." It is probable that 
he wrote a treatise on them, and that he added 
the general science of botany to his dendrology ; 
for he spake of trees " from the cedar that is in 
Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out 
of the wall." Trees, then, must be a proper sub- 
ject for any one's study. Trees and woods are 
the subject of this chapter. 

I do not propose a treatise, in the manner of 
the naturalist, as I did not in speaking of birds 
and cattle ; but shall make some every-day ob- 

(239) 



240 DERWENT. 

servations on them, which may, perhaps, be use- 
ful to young readers in their woodland excur- 
sions. 

The twilight of the woods is pleasing. The 
twilight which the day leaves behind it is every- 
where the same ; this of the woods is uneven ; 
there is deep dusk in some places, faint shade in 
others. 

The colors around you there are a study. No 
two masses of leaves are tinged alike : one is 
gray ; another silvery ; another pale yellow ; an- 
other golden ; and there are many intermediate 
tints and shadings. These are the effects of the 
sunbeams that stream down through openings in 
the leafy canopy above, or are strained through 
where the spread of leaves is thin. The sun is a 
great artist in lights, shades, and colors, and de- 
lights to show his work in woods and groves. 
With what a glory he lights them up at evening ! 

And then, besides these transient sunbeam 
paintings, the different kinds of trees differ in the 
natural color of their foliage. The pale willow's 
green is not the green of the oak ; the rusty pop- 
lar's is not that of the maple, or the beech ; nor 
the hemlock's that of the darkest of the ever- 
greens. 



D ER WENT. 



241 



The shapes of trees present you with another 
study. I refer to the forms which the different 
kinds naturally take. The tall cedar, the stately 
pine, the arching elm, the pointed cypress, the 
spheroidal beech, the sprawling- shrub oak, the 
pensile weeping willow, drooping to the ground, 
and the rest, grow in shapes peculiar to them- 
selves, and by these shapes alone would be dis- 
tinguishable, though other marks were wanting 
to them. 

These marks, with other distinctive qualities 
of trees, are worth knowing, and properly belong 
to studies in the woods. Almost every country 
boy of ordinary wakefulness and curiosity, and 
fond of woodland rambles, can point them out to 
you. That city people should be unacquainted 
with them is not surprising; but T know of those 
whose homes are, and always have been, in the 
countr\', and to whom the knowledge would 
be practically valuable, who, beyond the mere 
shades before their houses, cannot tell one sort 
of tree, or wood, from another ;— who, if the}' 
ordered and paid for 51 cord of oak, or hickory, 
would not know they were cheated, if a cord of 
chestnut, 'or poplar, were brought them instead. 
Ladies, in particular, are liable to these imposi- 
16 



2^2 DERWENT. 

tions. For the benefit of such, then, let me say, 
that, on the cart, you may distinguish one kind 
from another by the bark, and by the color and 
the grain, or fibre, of the wood. The standing 
tree is known by its leaf, its shape, and its bark. 
In most cases the foliage alone sufficiently des- 
ignates it. 

The leaves, — the dress of trees, — are worthy 
of notice as objects of taste and curiosity. Go 
through the woods and pluck a sample leaf of 
each kind, and, laying them before 3'ou, make a 
little study of them. You may arrange them in 
classes, if you like, under the descriptive terms 
of the botanist ; as, ovate, lanceolate, palmate, 
and so forth. You find great differences among 
them, — varieties of shape, size, shade, texture, 
:\nd finish. No two of them are just alike, yet, in 
some cases the differences are so delicate that 
you have to look again before you perceive 
them. Some of them have the gloss of the finest 
varnish ; others are coarse, rough, and slovenly. 
Some are sallow, while others are so deeply and 
healthfully green that it might do an invalid 
good to look at them. Bruise them, and their 
smells are different. In their shapes they fur- 
nish patterns for every kind of sylvan ornamen- 



D E R WENT. 



243 



tation, in paintings, carvings, carpets, chintzes, 
and embroidery. If you know them in the 
woods, you will lov^e them as acquaintances in 
these artistic connections. 

For completeness of information, one might 
catalogue the woods, making a synopsis of all the 
kinds of trees he finds in them ; noting, at the 
same time, their respective uses and worth, the 
soils and situations they naturally elect, their 
comparative longevity, and other facts worthy to 
be remarked. If he have some regard to method, 
he will set such as have family resemblances and 
names together on his list ; as, for instance, the 
oaks, of which there were, as I remember, as 
many as eight varieties, or species, in our Der- 
went woods ; all acorn-bearers, genuine oaks, 
though differing from each other. The hicko- 
ries, as closely related as the oaks, and for aught 
I know, equally numerous or more so, will fill 
another large place in the list ; the evergreens an- 
other; the willows and the poplars, others; and 
so on down to triplets, couples and individuals. 

The grains and colors of woods are worthy of 
any one's studious attention. They are the more 
so because of the imitations of them by house- 
painters. The church I attend is grained in oak ; 



244 DERWENT. 

and the graining is as well done, T think, as is 
the average of such work. I cannot say it pleases 
me very well; it falls so short of the real. I am 
not sure that I should not like any one of the 
hard woods unpainted better than I like this or 
any imitation. The pews of the old meeting- 
houses were unpainted, and no one felt that they 
were lot nice and respectable. Indeed, for my 
pa I, I should say, eschew the grainer's paint and 
varnish, and pew your church with the veritable 
oak, or some other respectable, truth-speaking 
wood. 

Age in the tree, and time with the timber, 
deepens the richness of the beautiful kinds of 
wood : the old is finer than the young and the 
new. Some picture-frames which I looked at 
lately, made from one of the beams of an old 
church which had been taken down, are much 
more finely hued than they could have been, 
fresh-made at the time the church was built; 
which was more than a hundred years before. I 
have an article made from an old oak, — fabulous- 
1}^ old, — which for fineness of fibre and richness 
of color, I have hardly seen surpassed by any 
wood, in whatever country grown. It is a cane 
made from the famous Charter Oak of Connect!- 



DER WENT. 



245 



cut. The head, secured with a silver fillet, is 
from a timber, also oak, and beautifully grained, 
saved from Washington's house at Mount Ver- 
non while repairs were making on it, under the 
auspices of ladies, a few year since. My cane, 
therefore, is not of sapling nor of vulgar origin.* 
Formerly, chestnut was highly esteemed for 
ornamental uses. Time hardens it, and gives it 

* I went to look at the old oak once when I was )'oung, being 
in Hartford. It impressed me greatly with its venerableness ; 
it was the Methuselah of the old woods world. A few da3'S 
since, I addressed some inquiries concerning it to a friend in 
Hartford, and he gives me the following particulars : 

"The old oak fell in a gale of wind, August 21st, 1856;" — 
which was one hundred and seventy years after it was made the 
depository of the charter. Its age could not be accurately ascer- 
tained : it was estimated to be a thousand years. It is said that 
when the ground on which it stood was cleared (1638) for the 
residence of Governor Wyllys, the Indians begged that this old 
tree might be spared, saying that it had been " the guide of their 
ancestors for centuries," and " when its young leaves appeared 
in the spring-time, they knew that their corn should be planted." 
The heart of the main trunk had decayed till only a thin rim of 
it was left, when it fell ; but, from the branching out of the limbs, 
it was sound. It was of the white oak species, and was full of 
leaves and j'oung acorns. It was thirty-three feet in circumfer- 
ence at the base. 

On its fall, the bells were tolled, by order of the Mayor, and 
on the ground on which it had stood a band of music played a 
funeral dirge. 

The wood of it was all saved, and has been " wrought into 
mementoes of friendship," my correspondent sa3's, " in a thou- 
sand forms." To what finer uses than these of sentiment and 
friendship could it have been hallowed ? ' 



246 DERIVE NT. 

the dark, rich color of the nut it bears. It takes 
a fine pohsh. You will see polished floors of it, 
and, I think, wainscots and other work, in houses 
built by old grandees of England ; and in the 
earliest-built dwellings of this country that made 
some pretensions to style, it was used, more or 
less, in their best rooms. More recently, it seems 
to have given place, in cabinet-makers' shops, to 
mahogany and black walnut ; but now I notice it 
again in their ware-rooms, and see it mentioned 
in their advertisements. 

The cedar, particularly the white cedar, is ad- 
mirable for its grandeur as a tree. It grows 
large and high, and lives to a great age. It is 
remarkable for its durability, as timber, and for 
the permanency of its fragrance. The reader is 
presumed to know all this; but I must give an 
instance. Shingles of this wood, taken from an 
old house seventy years ago, and used as siding 
on one which was then new, are still in good 
condition, and likely to last, no one can say how 
long ; and they are almost, if not quite, as fra- 
grant as the new wood. What can science tell 
us of a substance (if it be a substance) so subtile 
as an odor which can spend itself constantly for 
a century, and not be exhausted ? 



D ER WENT. 



247 



I think we have no other native wood that re- 
sists time and the weather like the heart of the 
red cedar. An old gentleman showed me a post 
standing at the edge of a tide-water near his 
house, — he moored his boat to it, — which he 
knew had been there sixty years ; and there was 
no appearartce of decay about it yet. 

There are trees which are of small account for 
timber, shade, fruit, or fuel, and which you nev- 
ertheless like to see, for some quality they have. 
The dogwood is one of these. It bears a profu- 
sion of large, show}?^, dusky-white, innocent- 
looking blossoms, vandyke-shaped ; and, as it 
blows early, before the general leafing out of the 
woods is sufficiently advanced to hide it, you see 
it, blinking between the trees, at a considerable 
distance. It might be likened to a rustic tricked 
out in his smartest for a holiday. As for its fruit, 
the dogwood cherry, it is called eatable, but I 
suspect that most people, after tasting, would 
think it better thrown away than swallowed. 

The poplar is another of these good-for-little, 
yet interesting trees of the wood. The tremu- 
lousness of the aspen, which is a species of the 
poplar, is proverbial. You may stand and look 
at it, when the stillness of the air is such that 



248 DEKIVENT. 

there is not the slightest waving of the grass, or 
grain, nor the slightest ripple on the water, nor 
the least stir of leaves on other trees, and every 
leaf of the aspen will be quivering. Woodman, 
spare the poplar. 

It is not my purpose to recommend particular 
trees for shade or other uses, but I must say a 
word in behalf of the butternut ; which selon inoi, 
is one of the pleasantest trees to have near one's 
house. It is a prettier tree than the ailanthus, 
which, in appearance, it resembles. I have no 
respect for the ailanthus ; the odor of whose 
blossoms is said to be unwholesome ; which litters 
the ground with its ugly seed-pods, and is a pest 
by its rapid self-propagation. I would not inter- 
cede for it with the axe-man, though it were a 
native of our own woods, as it is not. The but- 
ternut is a clean and wholesome tree. The smell 
of its leaves is agreeable. I have a sprig of it on 
my table now. The nut, if gathered while green- 
enough, makes a good pickle. The thin waver- 
ing shadow of this tree does not blight vegeta- 
tion under it, as other shades do ; on the contra- 
ry, it aids it by fertilizing the soil by the oiliness 
of its past years' fallen leaves. You will never 
see an old butternut without observing the pecu- 



DERWENT. 249 

liar greenness of the grass beneath it. You need 
not go to the woods for a sapling to set out ; plant 
the nut; it grows rapidly. Plant it in your gar- 
den, — or by your house, and you will soon have 
a beautiful tree, and nuts to crack. 

I must not dismiss the trees without some no- 
tice of the rate and manner of their growth. 
They grow straight and tall in the woods, be- 
cause there they must, for want of room to 
spread themselves. This is a good consequence 
as it regards some of their uses. If long, straight 
timbers are wanted, for frames, keels, spars, we 
find them in the woods. In open situations they 
develop themselves more in branches, — form 
lower and heavier heads. And this I suppose 
to be their normal state. I remember a white- 
oak on our Derwent farm, under whose branches, 
which almost touched the ground, a hundred 
neats might have stood together, or perhaps lain 
down and ruminate, if amicably disposed. A 
party of students, rambling afield, came, as I re- 
member, to a pine of such vast dimensions, — so 
many branched and so high, — that they could 
but throw themselves down and gaze up into 
it with admiration ; and one of them, in his 
enthusiasm, climbed up into it like a squinel, 



250 DERIVE NT. 

and was out of sight, at times, amid its airy 
foliage. 

As to rates of growth, these of course differ in 
different trees. There are some that grow up 
soon, like Jonah's gourd, and soon die. But the 
slow-growing, and the long-living, are not as 
slow as some people think ; which I hold it be- 
nevolent to sa}', inasmuch as there are people 
who will refuse to plant a tree, particularly a 
fruit-tree, because it will never come to anything 
in their day, they think. Poor observers these, 
as well as selfish. An old lady at the age of 
seventy, planted a pear-seed, and lived to eat of 
the fruit from it for years. Look at the chest- 
nut, the pine, the ash, or any tree in the first year 
of its appearance among the dry leaves of the 
woods. It will take an age, one might say, for 
that thing to get up to treehood, judging from 
its beginning. But watch it and you will see it 
shooting up with increasing stretches from year 
to year. Now you reckon its growth by inches ; 
by and bye you will increase them by feet — 
yards — ells. Six years ago a quart cup would 
have covered that spruce which now looks in at 
your chamber window. 

There are many things that are of interest in 



DER WENT. 



251 



the woods, — trees not only, but many things be- 
sides ; the twining bitter-sweet, the gay kalmia, 
the sweet-smelling honeysuckle, the spic}' sassa- 
fras and wintergreen, the acid sumac, the fra- 
grant sweet-brier, the coronal blossoms of the 
tulip-tree, the pensile tags or tassels of the chest- 
nut and other nut -bearing trees, clambering 
vines, creepers, berries, plants, mosses, — to say 
nothing of the furred and feathered people that 
have their homes in those sylvan haunts. If I 
had never been, or not often, in woods, I should 
resort to them as to a cabinet of minerals, or 
shells, or any museum of useful and curious 
things ; and with the same desire for knowledge. 
There would be things for me to learn there 
"which printed pages could not teach me, and 
forms, manifold and beautiful, of the Creator's 
work, which it were a kind of impiety not to see 
and admire. 



XX. 



A NEW HOUSE 



A YOUNG family outgrows its house as a 
child does its clothes. Young people re- 
quire larger accommodations than do little chil- 
dren. That was our case. Our father resolved, 
therefore, to build a new house. 

The site chosen for it was a smooth level lot 
on the turnpike. We should lose a portion of 
our fine river view there, which we regretted ; 
but a good piece of the Connecticut and all of 
the Little Derwent would still be open to us, and 
what we lost from our landscape would be bal- 
anced by other advantages in our new position. 

And now for the plan and style of the new 
building ; for it was but a castle in the air so 
long as these were not fixed on. There was no 
architect in the place. We had carpenters and 
joiners, but these knew little beyond the com- 
mon use of tools, with some conceit of gfinerer- 
bread - work. So, for want of a wiser head in 

255) 



256 



DER WENT. 



such a business, we young folks set ourselves to 
contrive and plan. We had, at least, a good pre- 
text for amusing ourselves in that way. We had 
time enough, — all the leisure hours we could 
redeem from books and duties during the winter. 
We drew many first and second floors, and rude 
uprights, and, with our heads together and apart, 
used up much paper and candle-light. Our 
father amused himself with our essays and talk, 
without offei"ing any suggestions of his own. 

He was not specially skilled in house-planning, 
he said, " but, when we made a plan that suited 
us, he would see what he thought of it." 

One thing was settled in our minds at the out- 
set ; which was, that our house should not be 
like any other in Derwent, or elsewhere, that we 
knew of. There were good -enough houses in 
the place, it was true, and some that were large 
and costly; yet, though we had not thought of 
it before, there was not one that we quite liked, — 
that was faultless to the eye, and wholly satisfac- 
tory in its internal arrangements. And, besides, 
a house patterned exactly after another house 
had such a servile, imitative look, as if its builder 
had no " sconce" or '' gumption" of his own ; and 
if the imitated building- had somewhat that was 



D ER WENT. 



257 



original and peculiar about it, your copy of it 
Avould be a kind of plagiarism, a theft. And we 
liked, too, to see varieties in dwellings ; we 
knew of nothing more cheap and stupid-looking 
than a street, or row of houses, all just alike — 
fac-similes of each other ; or where two-thirds of 
the houses of a town, or village, were of the same 
fashion, differing only in size ; as was the case up 
in Hexam, we remarked. Our house must have 
a character of its own ; not a pretentious, but a 
distinctive one, as a matter of good taste. Exter- 
nally, it must be symmetrical, graceful, agreeable 
to the eye ; essentially and always agreeable, so 
that if you passed and looked at it a thousand 
times, you would not weary of it. Internally, it 
must be so convenient, and in such perfect taste, 
that there could be no wish to alter a single thing 
when you came to live in it ! 

We perceived by these'efforts, that architecture 
was too high an art for uninstructed heads, and 
that many mistakes were made in dwellings, and 
much money misapplied, and much dissatisfaction 
and disgust incurred, by inexperienced and pre- 
sumptions contrivers and builders. Our studies 
gave an artistic turn, too, to our tastes and obser- 
vations. We began to look at houses, and pictures 
17 



258 DERWENT. 

with houses in them, with the eye of the connois- 
seur and the critic. Our old house became a curi- 
osity with us. We went all through it, from the cel- 
lar to the attic, and stood outside and looked at 
it, and, in imagiir tion, made ourselves bystanders 
and lookers-on when it was planned and built, as 
if we had been the children, instead of great- 
grandchildren, of the builder ; listening to the 
talk about the length and breadth of rooms, the 
height of ceilings, and the great chimney, that 
must take up so much precious room, in the 
middle of the house. And we concluded, as the 
result of our survey, that it was but a plain, un- 
pretending domicile, but respectable for one of 
its date ; and we were quite sure that few roofs 
had covered happier families than that had. 

Our plan - drafting did not result in anything 
available: I suspect that nobody had supposed 
it would. It was an amusement and a study 
with us for a while, and was worth our time and 
pains. Meanwhile, our father engaged a man of 
another town to undertake the building in the 
spring, leaving the details of the contract to be 
determined by the style and plan that should be 
adopted. He was a man of experience and taste 
as a joiner, but of no pretensions as an architect. 



D ER WENT. 



259 



Our principal Derwent joiner thought himself 
aggrieved by this : " it was too bad," he said, 
" that a job of the kind should be taken right 
from under his nose and given to a stranger." 
To save feeling, therefore, the contractor afore- 
said proposed that he should come in and make 
a joint concern of it with him ; and for the same 
reason my father consented. He was, besides 
being a neighbor, a good faithful man, and a 
strong hand at the more common kinds of work, 
but was opinionated, and of deprecable judg- 
ment in nice matters. " We called him Con- 
tractor Number Two." 

Content with such a partnership, he set his 
wits at work to produce a plan for us ; and he 
soon brought one which he fancied must be 
(juite the thing. He left it for our inspection. 
It was a great, bulky, boxy thing, and much 
larger than we wanted. And such a roof! 
Mansard would have stared at it. The curb, or 
mansard roof, has great ease and gracefulness in 
some of its forms and relations, but nothing is 
more awkward than we sometimes see it, — an in- 
stance of which we had before us. I am afraid 
our remarks on the performance were not so 
considerate as, benevolently, they should have 



26o DERWENT. 

been, with reference to the projector. " It would 
do to build ships in, and ought to be sent to a 
navy-yard." " It would make a great fire." "It 
only wants the hull of a vessel under it to be a 
Noah's Ark." To build such a house as that, to 
stand for generations and be known and spoken 
of as the "Chester Place" — that would be fa- 



mous 



In these circumstances the " mother of inven- 
tion" put us again — and in earnest now — upon 
trying what we could do ; and with the aid of 
some works on architecture which we \yere so 
fortunate as to obtain, we produced a plan which 
all agreed, or allowed, to be satisfactory. 

And here permit me to suggest to young 
people the great desirableness of some knowl- 
edge of this subject of architecture. They are 
all interested in having pleasant homes ; and in 
seeing pleasant homes around them. They may 
have to plan them. And if they extend their 
acquaintance with the art beyond domestic 
dweUings, it will be a pleasure to them wher- 
ever there are beautiful and grand buildings for 
them to see. 

In the spring the work commenced, and by 
mid-autumn the house was finished and ready to 



DEKWEXT. 261 

receive us. The joiners had done their work 
well ; and so had the masons and the rest. But 
there had been some disputing of tastes between 
Contractor Number Two and us ; and also be- 
tween him and his associate. Equall}^ confident 
in his aesthetics with the other, and stronger- will- 
ed than he, the most that he would consent to, in 
a case of difference, would be to refer it to us. 
In one instance they compounded with each 
other thus : each of them would take one of two 
front rooms, and " do it off" in his own way. 
We did not object to this. Number Two 'had 
set his heart on it for his credit's sake as a master 
workman ; and we could remove his meretricious 
ornamentation, if any there should be, after the 
house was finished. This to some extent we did ; 
a portion of his fancy-work being finer than we 
liked. Tastes differ. 

At our first breakfast in our new house, Walter 
said he heard a tavern sign creaking on its hinges, 
and. a stage-driver's horn, in the night; Lizzie 
said she awoke feeling that she was on a visit 
somewhere, she could not tell where ; and we all 
found, comparing notes, that we had felt more 
like lodgers in a strangt dwelling, or at an inn, 



262 DERWENT. 

than like sleepers at home. And for a first night's 
sleep, or a first day, or the first few days, in a new 
house, such a feeling of strangeness was not sur- 
prising ; but the impression was slow in leaving 
us. At first, everything was so " bran new," — 
the rooms, most of the furniture, the pantries ; — 
though the girls had less of this feeling than their 
mother. And things outside were so bare. My 
sisters declared that " stepping out of door was 
stepping out into the open, staring, wide world ; 
for there was not a shade-tree, nor a shrub, nor 
a vitie, nor any cultivated thing, to indicate a 
human dwelling." Of course not, girls. The 
house first, and then the shrubbery and trees. 
If these be already on the place, so much the 
better ; if not, they must be waited for until they 
grow. 

We do not know, till taught by circumstances, 
how much is comprehended in that loved word, 
Home. There does not need an ejectment, a 
fire, an ostracism, to teach us ; a mere removal 
does it. You build, or buy a house, and move 
into it, and call it home. It is a lodge, a shelter, 
a retreat. A home is more than that. The home 
feeling is a sentiment, and is the growth of time 
and many fond and delicate associations. You 



DERWENT. 263 

cannot extemporize it, nor find it ready to your 
hand, to be quit-claimed to you for a considera- 
tion, along with houses and lands, in a deed. 

Wc hardly felt like " folks at home" in our new 
house, at first, as I have said ; but we slowly grew 
into the feeling. 

There is a pleasure in building in the country 
which you cannot have in the city ; you can sur- 
round your house with pleasant things, — shades, 
lawns, arbors, fruits, — things for the exercise of 
your skill and taste, and promotive of your health. 
It was too late in the season, when we moved, to 
do much at these ; but in the spring we made a 
busy scene of our new homestead. The shrub- 
bery and flowers were my sisters' province, with 
such help as they might want from stronger 
hands than theirs. The kitchen garden was my 
father's hobby ; and a capital one he made of it. 
I, for my part, built an arbor for grapes, and 
planted around it three of the best of the many 
varieties our farm afforded. They were wild 
grapes, of course ; our Isabellas and other culti- 
vated varieties, were not to be had. Hiram and 
I went with an ox-cart to a distant wood, and 
came home with forty fine young sugar maples ; 
and a hard day's work we had, getting them up, 



:6 !. D E R WEN T. 

their roots were so interlaced with the roots of 
other trees, and so bound down and hidden 
among i^ocks and stones. Meantime, my brother 
Walter, without any one's knowledge, and not 
suspecting what Hiram and I were about, went 
into a not distant field, and " backed home" two 
elms and a soft maple; and thought he had done 
a great thing till he saw what we had done. The 
elms were set immediately before the house, the 
maples along the road. Every one of them 
lived and flourished. We inclined to laugh at 
Walter's soft maple in comparison with our 
sugar maples ; but he gave it a place by itself, 
and staked his credit upon its becoming a 
fav'orite with us. And so it did. It assumed 
the shapeliest of forms as it grew, and when 
touciied by autumn frosts was the gayest of the 
line. 

Shenstone observes that " the works of a per- 
son who builds, immediately begin to decay; 
while those of him who plants, begin directly to 
improve. In this, planting promises a more last- 
ing pleasure than building." Those trees of ours 
are an instance of this. Hardl}' larger than 
bean-poles at their planting, and admirable for 
their size and vigor now, they are likely to be still 



D E R WENT. 265 

standing and growing when the house is gone, — 
unless some vandal axe cuts them down. 



We did not quit the old house for the new one 
with a feeling of indifference for the old. It had 
been our home. Our parents had commenced 
their married life in it ; one of them had been 
born in it, and so had all their children. It 
was easy to remove the furniture, but there was 
a something, undefinable, about it, which we 
could not take away with us. The dog wonder- 
ed what we were about. He did not understand 
at once that he was to have no further duties as 
a house-dog on those premises, and that he must 
quit his favorite napping -place under the old 
willow. 

The old house (and also the new) passed, long 
since from our ownership and name, as some of 
us have from the world ; but those of us who 
survive still cherish an interest in it. Time and 
distance have not lessened, but have deepened 
our regard for it. 

The feeling I am speaking of is as common as 
are remembered early homes. Long pilgrimages 
are made to gratify it. Men grown rich in cities, 
or abnjad, come and buy back the old place, and 



266 DERWENT. 

use their means and taste to embellish and pre- 
serve it. If the house itself has been taken down 
and removed, the home feehng still lingers, like 
an enchantment, upon the spot. Every vestige 
of it and its surroundings interests you. The 
well, with sweep and pole and curb gone ; the 
old elms, that used to shade the house, shading 
nothing now but the ground and one another ; 
the shrubbery, and the fruit-bearing bushes and 
vines, that spade and plough have spared, grown 
slovenly and straggling for want of a cultivating 
hand ; those trees, -such as remain of them, old 
and moss-grown, under which you used to eat 
such delicious apples and pears ; that small pic- 
tured tile which was part of the mosaic that 
embellished the parlor fireplace ; that old rusty 
" copper," of the value of a farthing in its day, 
which you chance to find, — what relics and ruins, 
for you, are these ! 

It is of country homes that I am speaking, as 
the reader will perceive ; of city homes I cannot 
speak from personal knowledge, but I think the 
interest in them must be less, for reasons that 
might be given. 

And why is it that we have this peculiar re- 
gard for our paternal home, — for that one roof 



DERWENT. 267 

and hearth-stone, above all others ? We may 
have had many homes, and pleasant ones, since, 
but we care for none of them as we do for that. 
The feeling cannot be transplanted, nor repro- 
duced elsewhere. The question why, may be 
worth}' of our thought as a study of the human 
heart. 

You will suggest, perhaps, the love of kindred, 
particularly of parents, and a variety of things 
pleasant, or sad, or both, to remember, in expla- 
nation of the matter; and these may all be con- 
cerned in it. But no number of particulars 
which any memory can furnish, will be all the 
data we want. Our whole young life, with all 
that pertained or happened to it, comes into the 
account. Richter observes that " every first 
thing continues forever with the child : the first 
color, the first music, the first flower, paints the 
foreground of his life." And all our first things 
happen to us in the home of our childhood. 
Many of them are too early for the memory to 
retain, but not too early to affect, permanently, 
our feeling. The curtained room, the gentle 
steps and voices, the cradle, the luUa-by, the 
sweet sleeps and wakings, — of these our memory 
tells us nothing, but they have left their hues and 



268 DERV/ENT. 

pencillings on the soul — are all in " the fore- 
ground of our life ;" though we cannot distinctly 
trace their lights and shadings there. But things 
enough we do remember, that tell us why we 
loved that early home, and why we love it still. 

There is a reflection which children are too 
young to make, and which old people make too 
late. For young heads of families it is a timely 
one, and they cannot overestimate its conse- 
quences. If the homes of children are so en- 
dearing in their memories and affections, how 
desirable it is that those homes should be as 
happy as parental love and wisdom and filial 
dutifulness can make them. 



XXI 



TURNPIKES 



THERE came along, one day, a number of 
men, strangers in the place, with surveying 
instruments. They had a knowing look, and 
evidently were people of some consequence. 
They went through the middle of our farm, 
spying, measuring, and setting stakes. Who in 
the world were they, and what were they about? 
They were laying out a turnpike, the great new 
road, and new kind of road, of which we had 
heard so much lately, which was to be as straight 
as a bee-line, and as smooth as a floor. 

After the surveyors came the appraisers, 
affixing values to the lands taken, — differing 
widely from the estimates of owners. " Why, it 
won't more than pay me for the fences I've got 
to make, let alone the value of the land," would 
one say ; and this seemed a hardship and a 
wrong. " But see how it's a going to raise the 

value of your property," would some more 

(271) 



272 



D E R WENT. 



reasonable, or less interested person reply ; which 
would put your injured sense of right at ease 
again. 

Then came the makers of the road, with their 
strong teams, and great ploughs, and that new 
thing under the sun, the ox-shovel ; also spades, 
picks, wheelbarrows, axes, and blasting appa- 
ratus. 

And forthwith down go our fences to make 
way for them; leaving the "long lot" cattle, 
that is, cattle whose owners kept them in the 
highway, to walk into our fields at will and ours 
to go out ; which cost an unreasonable amount 
of watching and running on our part to turn out 
the intruders and bring back the strays. They 
might have had the grace, if not the conscience, 
to stop the gaps at night, we thought ; but they 
were contractors by the job, and could not stay 
to be just. 

We watched the progress of the work, but, for 
my part, without delight in it. They were 
turning smooth, green surfaces into a dirty, 
ragged ridge, and spoiling thus a wide strip of 
pasturage and mowing ; were felling fine trees, 
and destroying shades that the cattle loved ; 
were removing or defacing venerable rocks; and 



D E R WENT. 



273 



cumbering the sides of the roadway with stones, 
stumps and other rubbish, — were, in fine, marring 
the face of everything, and beautifying nothing. 
People said there ought to have been a provision 
in their charter that they should clear the sides 
of the road of all such encumbrances as they 
made, and leave it smooth and fair to the foot, 
and agreeable to the eye ; instead of which 
owners in many cases had to clear a way for 
themselves, through the debris, into their lots. 
Still, the idea was dominant generally that turn- 
pikes were a great thing, and that these people 
were doing a great work. 

Looking back, now, upon the movement, with, 
the excitement and talk which it occasioned, I 
perceive that it had one wholesome moral effect. 
Those were stagnant times, comparatively ; there 
was little of a sensational kind transpiring any- 
where ; the newspapers were but dull ; and minds 
were " dropping off to sleep ; " but this turnpike 
affair comes and stirs them as a summer wind 
stirs the trees. 

And here I will take occasion to note what no 

grave historian may be at the pains to record, 

that turnpikes were the great popular idea in the 

first one or <^wo decades of this nineteenth 

18 



274 



D 1: R WEN T. 



centur}^ as railroads have been since; that which 
I have been speaking of being one of the earliest in 
Connecticut (chartered 1802), if not quite the earli- 
est as well as longest. The age came in with turn- 
pikes, — whatever it may go out with. It was 
not long before we of Derwent had a second one 
coming in upon us at right angles with the first. 
They were regarded with special favor by capital- 
ists ; by men retiring from business ; by prudent 
guardians and trustees. The funds of widows 
and orphans were put into their stocks as safe, 
permanent, and productive investments, and 
some affected to see in them dangerous monopo- 
lies. 

But who can prophesy against the ages, and 
make provision for the march of things? Those 
enviable investments, those secure widows' and 
orphans' funds, those dangerous monopolies, how 
have they thriven? The contrary way. I sus- 
pect that about the poorest formerly well-to-do 
people, dependent on dividends, that the reader 
knows, are the largest holders of turnpike stocks. 
How will it be with railroads, by and bye? Who 
can tell ? 

The roads, when finished, were not as satisfac- 
tory to people as was expected. In the first 



DERWENT. 275 

place, they were rudely and meanly done. A 
good deal less money than they cost, cheaply 
made as they were, would have sufficed to make 
the old highways both handsomer and better. 
Indeed, they were better as they were. They 
were harder and smoother to hoofs and to human 
feet, and better for wheels, also, except in places. 
They were more populous and sociable ; and 
were likel}'^ long to remain so. They were more 
romantic and picturesque, — had more shades, and 
brooks, and windings, and pleasant hill tops. 
The contemplative man preferred them. Lovers 
delighted in them. The strolling moon-lit party 
liked them better. 

I do not know who the writer of the passage 
I am about to quote is ; but it is so true to fact . 
and feeling, that, though the reader may have 
met with it elsewhere and often, I cannot forbear 
to grace my page with it. '' I hate turnpikes 
with a most thorough hatred, — running, as they 
do, in a straight line, which every one knows is 
not the line of beauty, passing, as they do, 
through the most uninteresting part of the 
country, clouded with dust and business men, 
and infested by mile-stones and toll-gates. How 
much pleasanter to take the ' old road' where 



2/6 DERIVE NT. 

are sunshine and shade — farm-houses and milk- 
maids — beautiful prospects and taverns — roman- 
tic feelings and apples in abundance !" 

Another cause of dissatisfaction with the turn- 
pikes was, that they did not make adequate com- 
pensation for the damage they did to the lands 
and buildings. They made sad work with homes 
and homesteads, in some cases. It is the road 
that invites the house, and determines where it 
shall stand, and which way it shall front. Those 
are exceptional cases in which houses have been 
built in the fields, and roads made to them. But 
the turnpikes paid no regard to this. They 
passed close behind dwellings, if they pleased — 
pitched aside their wood piles, — spoiled their 
wells, — severed their out buildings from them, — 
went inexorably through their gardens, not even 
sparing the precious shrubs and flowers which 
the wife and daughters had so lovingly cherished. 
In this way they reversed the fronts of houses ; 
— turned them hind-side-afore ; or gave them 
two fronts, rather. I remember looking at a par- 
ticular instance of this, and thinking how morti- 
fied and vexed the family must be. The house 
was an old one, of the lean-to fashion. Having 
been built on the old road, its front was toward 



DER WENT. 



277 



it, of course. That was its public side, its side 
" to see to," and it looked very well. The back 
was more humble. It was painted red, econo- 
mically, as was the case with many houses at 
' that time, their fronts and ends being white ; and 
the lean-to roof came down quite low. Close 
along behind this house comes the turnpike, so 
near there is hardly room for the rain-water 
hogshead under the spout. And you can look 
right into the kitchen as you pass — the house- 
wife's sanctum. This house had no back to it, 
now. Wedged in between two highways, it was 
all front, and chiefly so behind. 

And then, the turnpikes barred us the use of 
the old roads. They did not shut them up, 
wholly ; they could not, nor did they need to ; 
but they ran into and usurped them in places 
where they chose to put their gates ; so that 
there should be no getting round their tolls. 
People felt that this was a kind of robbery. The 
old roads had prior and primitive rights ; they 
belonged to the whole public, and to history ; 
and were not to be set aside thus by upstart 
chartered companies. 

And, finally, the toll-gates. People were slow 
in accommodating their ideas to these. Indeed, 



278 DERWENT. 

I doubt if they have yet done so, anywhere, 
fully ; for in my travels about the country where 
the gates are still kept up, I notice that they will 
avail themselves of a '' shun-pike," though it may 
be a mile or two longer, — not because they 
grudge the pittance of a few cents, so much, but 
because of the impertinence of the demand ; and 
sometimes on account of the crustiness of the 
toll-taker. We had no shun-pikes in Derwent; 
but going to mill was toll-free by law, as was 
church-going, and people having occasion to 
pass through a gate, would manage to be going 
to mill at the same time. 

A noted droll, an old man, would take a small 
bag of beans along, as if it were corn. " Beans 
are light to carry," he would say with a wink. 
He was suspected, but there was no law for 
searching bags for tollable articles, as there is 
for searching trunks for dutiable ones, at the 
custom-house. 

To show how plain men felt and spoke, let me 
give, substantially, a talk among our work-people. 
They are taking their dinner in the fields. 

" These turnpike gates !" says one. " You can't 
go north, nor south, nor west, but you are fetched 
up by them." 



DERW EN T. 279 

" A highway ought, of all things, to be free," 
says another. 

" As free as the river is to boats and vessels," 
says a third. " I'm glad they can't toll-gate the 
river." 

"■ I don't object to passages and fares. If a 
stage takes me up and carries me, or a vessel, or 
a ferry-boat, I am willing to pay for it, of course ; 
but to pay for every mile my own horse draws 
or carries me, — shutting me off from the old 
road, too, and forcing me to go that way, or 
none, — that looks a httle like extortion /say." 

" And who wafits to be stopping, in a hot day, 
— your horse stamping for the flies, — waiting for 
the keeper to come out and open the gate, or if 
he is nowhere around, waiting for his wife, to 
wipe her hands and come, — till you could have 
got a good half mile on your way ?" 

" Or in the middle of a cold night," said 
Ephraim Bold. 

*' Yes ; and let us hear about that, Ephraim." 

" What time has't got to be ? " asked Ephraim, 
squinting at the sun. 

" Time enough, Ephraim ; it an't one yet, by 
considerable ; and you'll be shorter than a ser- 
mon." 



28o DERWENT. 

" And shorter-faced than a preacher," Bold re- 
plied. 

" Well, I was conniin' down from Pusset — had 
been up there about a cow, — cold night, fust cold 
snap we'd had. I got to Hexam gate some'eres 
about twelve or one o'clock, as nigh as I could 
guess, — 'twas late anyhow. Found the gate 
shet — no light — fast asleep. I tried if it would 
open. No ; locked with a padlock. So, Hello ! 
the gate, says I, and waited a little. No answer. 
Hello there, in the house. Hello, the gate. 
Nobody stirred. I'll see what poundin' '11 do, 
says I. Pound, pound, pound.. Click, click, I 
hcered the steel and flint go, and out comes old 
Burdock with his lantern. I was glad 'twas him, 
and not his wife; for I'd a touch of his good- 
nature goin' up. Good evenin', if 'tan't too late, 
says I. Evenin', says he. Guess your fire ha'n't 
kep' to-night, by your havin' to strike fire, saj'^s 
I. Any news, Mr. Burdock? No, says he, as 
short as pie-crust. Guess we'll have a pretty 
smart frost to-night, says I. Guess you'd think 
so if you had just got out of bed, says he, 
shiverin', for he wa'n't above half dressed. What 
time does the moon go down ? says I. Why, 
there it is, in the west, can't you tell yourself? 



DER WENT. 281 

I could if I was at home, and knew what time it 
riz, says I, but up here in Hexam I can't, the lay 
of the land is so different. If that hill would 
move a little to the north, I could, I guess, — all 
the while feelin' for my money, first in one 
pocket and then in another. Made a good deal 
of cider up here, this fall, Mr. Burdock? We've 
made what we've made, says he. And took it 
to the still mostly? says I. I thought you was 
in a hurry, says he. I ? No, not much of a 
one, says I. I thought you must have been in 
a thunderin' hurry — somebody going for a doc- 
tor — the way you pounded and hollered, says 
he. I wish you ivas in one, and then you'd 
hurry with your toll. Keep cool, says I ; I've 
got it for you, some'eres in these pockets; you 
may be sartin on't ; but it takes numb fingers 
a good while to find things. Yes, here it is, — 
the ready chink, as the law directs, — holdin' out 
the coppers to him. He snatched it out of my 
hand, and gi'n the gate a swing open with spite 
enough to break it off the hinges. There, 
go 'long and be hanged to you, says he, and 
wanted to swear, but didn't outwardl}'. Why 
had'nt you better leave it open nights? says I. 
'T would be a savin' of tinder and brimstone to 



282 DE R WENT. 

you, and may be save you from catching a cold 
now and then. Well, good night, says I ; for I 
thought I would set him a good example, and 
be civil to him ; and started on." 



1 



XXII. 



Derwent Characters. 



BEATTIE, in his Dissertation on Laughter 
and Ludicrous Composition, remarks that 
" ludicrous qualities are incident to men who live 
detached in a narrow society ;" whereas " a gen- 
eral acquaintance with mankind produces a facil- 
ity of doing what is conformable to general 
manners, and wears off those improprieties and 
strange habits that divert by their singularity." 

There will be singular characters in any com- 
munity, but you will oftenest find them in thinly- 
inhabited districts. In such communities there 
are people living in a great degree apart from 
the rest of mankind, in out-of-the-way places, or 
in little rustic neighborhoods. Living alone, 
they think alone ; see few books ; are conversant 
with few people ; are little open to the corrective 
observation of others ; know nothing of conven- 
tionalities, not much of fashions, manners and 
customs. In such seclusion, — growing up in it 

(z8s) 



286 DER WENT. 

from their birth, — they naturally form singular 
habits and ideas ; they will be odd, quaint, whim- 
sical, pedantic, or in some way unlike other 
people. 

Yet they are not, in all cases, nor in most, disa- 
greeable. On the contrary, they interest us. 
They are originals. Their odd ideas and habits, 
and singular modes of expression, have for us a 
kind of freshness, just as an antique book has. 
The general style of society is commonplace, 
monotonous, everywhere dismally alike, and 
consequently dull ; these help to diversify it. 

Derwent had its characters. I will not here 
call them odd, or eccentric characters; those 
epithets would express too much with regard to 
some of them ; they had their notable peculiari- 
ties. A number of them may be worthy of so 
much room as they will occupy on these pages. 

Mr. Willows, — "Uncle Zachary," — was a 
man of medium stature, a little stooping, — round 
head, — jutting brows, — small twinkling eyes, — 
of the kindest dispositions, and of great purity 
of character. He was in the autumn of his days, 
as I remember him. His house was the last on 
one of the old roads ; consequently it was a lone- 
some one ; for all last houses are lonesome, — on 



DE R WENT. 287 

one side at least. An outside one of a village, 
anywhere, is not desirably located, as to its so- 
cial aspects ; but the last one on a public high- 
way, with a houseless mile, or miles, beyond, has 
always seemed a little dismal to me. The sepa- 
rateness of a farm-house, a little removed from 
neighbors on all sides, 1 do not object to ; that is 
pleasant ; but to be pitched on the very edge of 
a town, the object of the last look of the out- 
going traveller, and the first stopping-place of 
the vagabond coming in, is not an inviting situ- 
ation, 

A remarkable characteristic of Uncle Zachary 
was his singular calmness of temper. Nothing 
elated, depressed, ruffled, or in any way excited 
him, visibly. If a storm unroofed his barn and 
deluged its contents, — which actually happened, 
— he took it as calmly as he would a zephyr 
whispering at his window. How he attained to 
this fixed tranquillity of spirit, I am unable to 
say. There is a natural difference in tempers, 
and his may have been one of the mildest ; but 
it may reasonably be presumed that an " even 
tenor" so peculiar as his, must have been in a 
greater or less degree the effect of discipline. 
Perhaps he schooled himself into it through 



288 DERIVE NT. 

some theor)^ of self-control, some notion of exem- 
plariness, some dictate of religious faith ; though 
there was not the least taint of fanaticism in 
him. Or, it may be that his wife was a nervous 
or a passionate woman, and there was need of an 
opposite manner in him to countervail her ex- 
citements. I do not know how this was, for she 
was gone before my memory. 

His house was struck with lightning. It came 
down through the ceiling of the room where he 
was sitting, and set fire to the floor. Without 
leaving his chair, or laying down his pipe, he 
called to his daughter to bring some water and 
put it out. A pitcherful sufficed to do it. She 
then hastened to see what other mischief might 
have been done, and came back reporting none 
except that a hen and chickens had been killed 
outside the door. 

Another of his characteristics was a kind of 
whiffing of his lips, a whistling whisper, it might 
be called, which seemed to have made itself nec- 
essar}^ to his thinking, acting, care-taking, con- 
versing, and whatever he did. Bid him good- 
morning, ask his opinion, tell him news, arid he 
would preface his response with a whcw-ew-ff. 

You could hardly call him absent-minded; 



D E R WENT. 



289 



for he would appear to keep an affair itself in 
mind, thoiiofh at the same time he would seem to 
be heedless of the way he was getting on with it ; 
and so miscarriages would happen. He had an 
odd, dreamy way of driving his oxen, going 
along some yards before them in the middle of 
the road, expecting them to follow, speaking to 
them, now and then, but hardly looking back to 
see if they minded him or not, — whiffing the 
while, as his habit was. His cart was a light, 
low-wheeled one, with a pair of oxen to match. 
Oxen and cart were a curiosity for size. Instead of 
a whip, he used a short crotched stick, the prongs 
a little sharpened, for a goad, as he called it. 

Among the stories that used to be told of his 
abstractions, this was one : Coming home with a 
load from the woods, on reaching his house he 
opened the gate, walked in, and spoke to the 
cattle to follow. They did not follow, — had not 
arrived, — were not in sight. He went back 
along the road, — ivhew-ff-ff, — and found them 
about half-way home, set in a spot of mire. 

A not easily-forgotten incident of my boyhood 

was a ride he gave me in his little cart. 1 

chanced to fall in with him and it, in the dusk of 

a summer's day, and he asked me to get in. 

26 



290 



DER WENT. 



We were in the fields, quite away from any road. 
There was a large lot full of stumps for us to 
cross, with only a narrow, crooked wheel-track 
through it. As we entered on this, one of the 
wheels hit a stump, which scared or vexed the 
oxen, and, bolting from the track, they set to 
running, taking a random course through the 
stumpy field, as chance and fright, or fury, led 
them ; and the wheels, hitting, first one and then 
the other, against a stump, slued the vehicle vio- 
lently this way and that, like a sloop jibing in a 
shifting gale. The equable old man, sitting in 
the fore end of the cart, his feet hanging out, 
perilously, used such methods with his goad and 
voice as he and the oxen were used to ; but with- 
out avail. So, handing the goad to me, he said, 
" Jump out, Johnny, and run ahead of them." 
Dropping from the cart, I did my best at running 
and dodging among the stumps, but fell behind, 
and on the fugitives went till a fence and want 
of breath brought them to a stand. " Whew- 
ew-ff," said Uncle Zachary, when I came up ; 
" they've given us a mighty hard jolting, but 
nobody is hurt, and nothing broke." 

He was a good man, and I always liked to hear 
the few remarks he would make at an evening 



D ER WENT. 



291 



religious meeting, — prefaced and intermingled 
though they were with his characteristic souffle. 
But in his prayers there would be nothing of 
this, which showed a feeling too reverent to ad- 
mit of such an accompaniment. 

Passing around, reading old and familiar names 
in the Derwent burying-ground, the last time T 
was there, I came to the head-stone of Ephraim 
Bold ; and my spontaneous thought was. The 
wild ducks are the safer in the creeks and marsh- 
es while that long, sure shot-gun of his is rusting 
on its hooks, or has passed into less expert hands. 

Ephraim Bold, or Bold Ephraim, as he was 
often called, from his fearless nature and the free- 
dom of his manner, was a strongly-built, square- 
shouldered man, six feet and an inch or two high, 
and looking taller than he was from the fashion 
of his dress, which was always a roundabout and 
trowsers. You would never see him in a coat 
of any other fashion, even on public occasions, 
or at meeting. He was quite uncultivated, but 
was not wanting in good sense and good nature, 
and, in his rude way, was a humorist, — an in- 
stance of which has been given in his affair with 
the crusty gate-keeper. 



292 DER WE N T. 

His great delight was duck-hunting. He cared 
for no other game, whether furred or feathered. 
He cared little for any other recreation. He 
was always on the look-out for ducks on the 
wing, and in the waters; and. if he saw a flock 
of them, it was hardly possible for him not to 
forego or quit work and go after them. A 
painted landscape in which the Little Derwent 
should be shown without the smoke of a gun, 
a flock of startled ducks rising, and the tall figure 
of a man stepping out from behind a bush, 
would, to my eye, be an incomplete picture ; so 
often have I seen Ephraim Bold there in such 
circumstances. Having a wife to provide for, 
his ducking cost him more time than he was 
well able to spare. He was sensible of this, and 
was always glad of a rainy day as an excuse ; 
and the rain must be a very pouring one to pre- 
vent his turning it to such an account. 

A one-idea man hardly pleases us ; we hate a 
hobby-rider; but a man who has some one ex- 
clusive bent, or passion, interests us. You would 
have been interested in Ephraim Bold. He en- 
joyed his one diversion more than many a pro- 
fessed devotee to pleasure enjoys his whole 
round of fashif^nable amusements. You could 



D ER WEN T. 293 

not but have sympathized with him in it. You 
could not but have admired the sagacity, the 
tact, the almost instinct, as well as the zest, with 
which he followed it. 

Bold was a ship-carpenter by trade, but he 
often worked for us, and was one of our best 
men, especially with his axe and broad-axe in 
the woods. He was never without a piece of 
chalk in his pocket, keeping all his accounts and 
memoranda with it, using doors, beams and 
pieces of boards, for his account-books. Some 
one asking, on a Monday morning, where one of 
the texts of the preceding day was, he gave the 
chapter and verse. " But how should you know, 
Ephraim ? You wasn't there to hear it," said the 
other. " Yes, I was, and I chalked it down on 
my boot, because my wife won't never believe 
I've been to meeting, if I can't tell her where the 
text was." 

Although he had no vices, he was not relig- 
ious, — was, indeed a sad neglector of religion. 
But they told me that on his dying bed he was 
much concerned about his salvation. 

" Aged 70 years." Only seventy ! The " or- 
dinary age" of man; but one would have ex- 
pected that a man of his build and constitu- 



294 



DER WENT. 



tion would have held out for more years than 
that. 

Mrs. Wakelee was much respected and es- 
teemed as a woman. But she was one of the 
greatest " drivers" in the world, — driving herself 
as well as her household. It was not possible 
that work or thought should stagnate where she 
was. You would think that she had everything 
to do, and scant time to do it in, — that the actual 
day was the shortest in the calendar, and that 
she apprehended that the night would be upon 
her before she was aware. In the matter of house- 
wife industries, you might almost say she was an 
exaggeration of the good wife in the last chapter of 
Proverbs ; — and those days, too, were still the days 
of the distaff, the spinning-wheel, the loom, the 
dye-tub, the leach-tub, and other like implements 
and means of domestic comeliness and comfort. 
What changes have come over us since then ! 

Yet Mrs. Wakelee was no scold, and I never 
heard that her family, or work-people, were fret- 
ted by her hurrying. On the contrary, I suspect 
her spirit produced its opposite in them, judging 
from the manner of her children, who were quite 
staid and deliberate. 



DER WENT. 295 

She lived at some distance from us, and I do 
not recollect ever being in her company but 
once, though I often saw her at meeting. That 
once fixed her in my memory. One Saturday 
evening, she surprised us with a visit, having 
come to stay all night, and go with us to meet- 
insf on the morrow. She arrived on her feet 
from somewhere, — perhaps had walked all the 
way. 

It was a rare entertainment to hear her talk, 
she was so spirited in it, and at the same time 
sensible, and original ; indeed, her whole man- 
ner as a conversationist was a novelty. 

When the time for church-going came, she 
proposed to go on my mother's horse, rather 
than in the carriage. It suited the restlessness 
of her spirit to go in that way ; — only the wonder 
was that she did not prefer to go on her feet 
for greater expedition. She mounted from the 
horse-block, gathered up the reins, and with a 
chirrup and a " terup" set off; glancing at me 
and sa)nng, as she did so, " The lad must run 
along with me and keep up, and be there to take 
the jade." It was curious to see the figure she 
made ; a tall, lean woman, arms akimbo, elbows 
jerking, switch in hand. I found it an impracti- 



296 DERWENT. 

cable task to keep up with her ; for Bessie ap- 
peared to understand the spirit of her rider, and 
went at a gait faster than her ordinary church- 
going one ; but I did get there soon after her, 
out of breath, to "take the jade." 

In a remote corner af the parish, "out west," 
there was a plain, brown, one-story house, within 
and around which there seemed to be an atmos- 
phere of peculiar simplicity and contentment. It 
was the house of Deacon Lucas. He was a 
good man, and worthy of his office. But what I 
have to say of him relates to his style of conver- 
sation. In almost everything he said, he would 
express himself in figures, deriving them from 
the farm and familiar scenes of nature. A writer 
of pastorals might have envied him his fertility 
in these. 

I remember with interest a visit which my 
brother and I made him in one of our college 
vacations ; in which he often surprised us with 
the shrewdness of his remarks, as well as with 
the quaintness of his language and manner. 

Two gentlemen had been trying to bring about 
a reconciliation between parties that were at va- 
riance ; an officious intermeddler had made mat- 



DERIVE NT. 297 

ters worse. My brother and I, sitting by our- 
selves over the embers, at bed-time, were talking- 
of that affair ; the deacon, overhearing us in the 
next room, said, " Mr. Ches/^r, I'll tell you one 
tiling : one man will pull down rail fence faster 
than two can put it up." He had a wa)% when 
a thought struck him, of accenting the last sylla- 
ble or word of his expression, and also the last 
syllable of a name, in a personal address ; and 
this gave vivacity to his idea. 

In a parish meeting there were a number of 
members who were all the time up on their feet, 
confounding, or retarding business by their am- 
bitious., noisy talk. Deacon Lucas, getting the 
floor, exposed the motive of their forwardness 
by a single remark: "Mr. Modera/^r: we all 
want to drive the team." The deacon resumed 
his seat ; the parties referred to resumed theirs. 

We had a neighbor who was always prating 
of the inconsistencies of professors of religion, as 
though their failings were a sufficient justifica- 
tion of his own. Passing Deacon Lucas's door one 
morning, he stopped and began in his old strain. 
The deacon heard him awhile, and replied to 
him thus : " Mr. Pra///£T ! suppose there comes 
a snow in the night and covers the ground. The 



2gS DERIVENT. 

first person that comes along the road here in 
the morning- is a church member. You come 
along after him, and you see by his tracks that 
he has gone very crooked, straying away to One 
side of the patch and then to the other side, and 
sometimes turning back a little. Now, would 
you go crooked because he did, — or would you go 
straight along f " 

Timothy Lux was one of that sort of Christians 
who, instead of esteeming others better than 
themselves, as Paul advises, deem it their duty to 
act the censor and the prompter of their brethren. 
There was a business meeting of the church. 
Timothy Lux was at the meeting, and, not seeing 
many of the Lakeside members there, thought 
he must call Deacon Lucas to account for this. 

" Deacon Lucas, what are all the Christians 
out your way doing, that so few of 'em are 
here ?" 

" I can't say as to all of them," said the dea- 
con ; '■' some of them are planting corn, or were, 
when I came along." 

"Busy with their worldly affairs," said Lux ; 
" but are any of them alive in religion ?" 

" I don't know as they are, or as religion 's 
ahve in them," replied the deacon, in a tone al- 



DERWENT. 299 

most laughably deliberate and indifferetit, in 
comparison with the sharp, quick manner of the 
questioner. '' We live a good deal scattered out 
our way : we are like coals scattered all about 
the hearth, and scattered coals are not apt to 
burn." 

" Yes, but human hands could get those coals 
together, and make 'em burn," said Lux. 

" Ah, but you would want the bellows, too, the 
spiritual wind, to kindle 'em," the deacon re- 
plied. 

" And how is it with you, Deacon Lucas ; have 
you had any new experiences of late?" 

*' Nothing to boast of." 

My father and the deacon met on Dodsley's 
Bridge, at a late hour, one evening, both being 
on horseback. They did not recognize each 
other till an exchange of salutations revealed 
them. 

" Good evening," said my father, at random. 
" Good evening," said the deacon. " We live in 
u strange world. Some people's minds are like 
this rack of Dodsley's that hangs across the 
brook here. It lets all the clean, wholesome 
water run through, and stops all the trash. I've 



200 DEE WENT. 

been talking with such a one this evening. Good 
night." And the deacon passed on. This was 
all that was said. 

The rack referred to was a kind of hanging 
wicker fence suspended from a pole that spanned 
the brook. I often stopped, when I was a boy, 
to see the stuff that it ai-rested as it came down 
the stream ; — leaves, sticks, scum, apples sound 
and rotten, and other floating things. Such 
strainers are some minds, the deacon said, letting 
pass all that is pure and wholesome, and retain- 
ing what is trivial and foul. 



XXIII. 



The Old Thanksgiving 



WE still have our annual Thanksgiving. It 
is to be hoped that we may have it to the 
end of time ; for it is a festival too precious for 
its uses and its memories to be discontinued. 
But it is not in all respects what it was. 

It used to be a State appointment, and as such 
we loved and respected it. Out of New Eng- 
land, a festival of the kind was unknown any- 
where ; and in New England each State chose 
its own day, which was not often the same as was 
selected in others. Lately it has been turned 
into a national affair, the President, by appoint- 
ment and proclamation of his own, making a 
common thing of it for all the States. We have 
no longer a Connecticut Thanksgiving, there- 
fore ; we have only a piece of a national one. 
But does not the Governor issue his proclama- 
tion, regularly, just as heretofore? Yes; but in 
the manner of a subordinate, — by high permis- 

(303) 



304 DERIVE NT. 

sion, as it were, the President having first sent 
out his, — rather than of a chief-magistrate. We 
have still a Thanksgiving festival, and a wel- 
come one ; but it is not the old and genuine 
Thanksgiving. The day has lost much of its 
lormer prestige, and interests us less, and other- 
wise, than it did, by reason of this national adop- 
tion and enlargement. The more limited the 
circle is, the more active are the sympathies 
within it. We might suppose an oecumenical 
appointment of the kind, a World's Thanksgiv- 
ing, and there might be grandeur in the idea ; 
but it is probable that families, as such, would 
feel little interest in it. And I suspect that New 
England families, and New England people, feel 
less interest in a United States Thanksgiving, as 
such, than heretofore they have felt in their own 
State Thanksgivings, as such. But, leaving this, 
we will go back now to the observance as it 
was. 

The proclamation was read from the pulpit, as 
is still the custom, on the Sunday preceding the 
festival. It always ended with these words : 
^^ All servile labor and vain recreation on said day 
arc by law forbidden^ Mark that, young peo- 
ple, — all play forbidden. And now the great 



DERWENT. 305 

topic was Thanksgiving". All was talk and prep- 
aration, with some questioning of the sky, and 
of one another, as to the probabilities of the 
weather. 

The day came. We were all at meeting ; the 
pews were as full as they ordinarily were on 
Sundays. The proclamation was read again, 
with that same prohibition of " vain recreation." 
The services, conducted by our excellent pastor, 
were always strikingly appropriate. He took 
due notice of the reasons we had for thanksgiv- 
ing of a public kind, both providential and civil; 
but never in such a way as to wound, politically, 
in the slightest degree, any reasonable hearer: 
in other words, his performances were marred 
by no party bias. Of course he adverted to 
blessings of a local kind, with which we had 
been favored as a community. His thanksgiv- 
ings on behalf of families that had been particu- 
larly blessed, seemed almost as if they were 
expressly intended to be congratulatory of such 
families, while at the same time he loaded them 
with a sense of their obligations. And then, he 
was not forgetful of such as had been afflict- 
ed. With the sympathizing thoughtfulness of a 
friend, he remembered that there would be sor- 



3o5 DERWENT. 

rovvful recollections and tender feelings ming- 
ling with the greetings and festivities of the 
season, — that there would be vacant seats at the 
table and by the fireside. 

About as soon as we came home from meet- 
ing, dinner was ready to be served ; and we sat 
down to it as people do who have good health 
and appetites, good consciences, and good com- 
pany. We should have felt that something was 
wanting to us, had no tables been thought of but 
our own. The minister had been remembered 
with a fat turkey ; and some ghickens had been 
killed for people, sick or poor, or both, that our 
mother knew of. 

And now, having attended the public services, 
with becoming seriousness, and partaken of the 
bounties of a plentiful table, with thankful hearts, 
we young people felt inclined to fill up the day 
with some lively pastime ; especially if we had 
cousins with us, or other young companions, to 
join us in it. But there was that formidable 
prohibition of " all servile labor and vain recrea- 
tion," meaning, as we understood it all work and 
play, — though, as to work, Betty was " sure, fpr 
her part, there was enough of that done." That 
was a bar, and a damper. That made a kind of 



DERVV EN T. 307 

Sunday of the day : we might not play on Sun- 
days ; and where was the difference ? It had 
been twice read in our hearing from " his Excel- 
lenc3''s " great broad sheet, which was a very 
grave document; and read from the pulpit, 
which was a solemn place. It naturally im- 
pressed us deeply. The law forbade ; and we 
had been taught that laws must be respected. 
But the law, so construed, was a snare to con- 
sciences ; for it was impossible that exuberant 
young spirits should refrain from all mirthful 
play at such a time. The law itself was at fault ; 
it had no right to make such a prohibition. It 
would have been quite proper for the Governor 
to recotmnend abstaining from labor and amuse- 
ment, without commanding, or enjoining it ; but 
the civil law is out of its province when it as- 
sumes either to forbid or command any observ- 
ance, or mode, of a religious kind. It has noth- 
ing to do with matters of faith, or conscience, 
purely such, and as such. These are for the 
cognizance of a higher power. This is coming 
to be better understood than it used to be, but 
is still too imperfectly perceived by the generali- 
ty of people.* 

* Excuse this note in a book which makes no pretensions to 



3o8 



DER WE N T. 



I must do our parents the justice to say, that 
they did not attempt to restrain us from recrea- 
tion after our return from meeting, only check- 
ing us if we were too noisy. And I was glad of 
a remark made to us by our grandfather Chester. 
We had run down to see him and our grand- 
mother after dinner; and he, seeing us more 
demure and self-restrained than he liked, said, 
" You may run about and play, children, and be 
as lively as you will. It is'nt children's play that 
the Governor means by " vain recreation," but 
such things as balls, horse -racing, shooting-match- 
es, and the like. And, besides, it is man's law, 

philosophy or metaphysics. There are three institutions of 
God's appointing, — the Family, the Church, and Civil Govern- 
ment. The Bible recognizes these, and no others, as His. They 
cover the whole ground of man's social and moral interests. 
Each of them has its appropriate sphere, within which its action 
is legitimate and responsible. But, when any one of them as- 
sumes to do the work of one or both of the others, or to control, 
direct, or in any way meddle with them authoritatively, mischief 
is the consequence; as in the case of the State regulating the 
Church ; or the Church the State ; or either of these the Family. 
Hands off: You are out of your province here, may each of them 
say to the other. And it may be said further, that any popular 
combination — reform society, league, brotherhood, or whatever 
it may call itself, be it secret or open, — assuming thus to regu- 
late, or do the work of any one of these institutions, and by 
means equivalent to force, or other than such as are simply 
suasive and moral, undertakes an unwarrantable business, and 
of whatever use it may be, or aim to be, will eventually work 
more harm than good, as results will always show. 



D ER WENT. 309 

and not God's, that says we mustn't work or 
play to-day ; and I don't think we are to regard 
it just as strictly as if God said it." Such an 
opinion, from such a source, was a sensible re- 
lief to us. We laughed and played the more 
heartily for it, and laid our heads on our pillows 
in greater peace at night. 



XXIV. 



SATURDAY NIGHT 



SATURDAY NIGHT has a character of its 
own. All the other secular evenings are 
mnch alike ; the interest of this is distinct and 
peculiar. It is to the week what the evening is 
to the day ; with it comes release from the labors 
of the week. You throw down your implements, 
and cast aside your cares, with the feeling that 
they a'"e not to be resumed in the morning. It 
brings you social release also ; as on that even- 
ing you are conventional!}^ excused, generall}', 
from the receiving and the making of visits and 
social calls. And this is as grateful, often, as re- 
lease from toil itself; for you like not only to be 
alone sometimes, but to feel secure of being so. 
You welcome that evening above others on that 
particular account. " I can finish this piece of 
work, can enjoy this book, or write this letter 
undisturbed," you say ; " for there will be no one 
coming in to-night." 

If you have working animals in your service, 



314 DERIVE NT. 

vou welcome the evening for their sake. You 
take off the harness, and the yoke, and say to 
them, There: there is nothing more for you to 
do, now, for the six and thirty hours to come ; — 
recognizing in this, humanel}^ the spirit, as well 
as dutifully the letter of the injunction, Six days 
shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day 
thou shalt rest ; that thine ox and thine ass may 
rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stran- 
ger, may be refreshed. 

It is Saturday night in the country, and as it 
used to be, that I have in mind, in these remarks; 
they are not in all respects applicable to cities 
and factory towns. It is to rural homes and self- 
supporting families, more especially, that the even- 
ing comes in the liberating, tranquillizing way 
which has been mentioned. 

Formerly, in New-England, the suspension of 
labor and worldly care was more entire and ab- 
solute than it now is, because people " kept Sat- 
urday night," regarding it as holy time. The 
old Puritans of New England, and their children 
after them, as ever)- one acquainted with their 
history and manners knows, began their Sabbath 
at sunset on Saturday, and ended it at the same 
hour on Sunday. That practice has gone into 



D ER WENT. 315 

desuetude pretty generally ; though I still hear 
of families that continue it ; and I always think 
of these, spontaneously, as good people. With- 
out personally knowing them, I take them to be 
good Christians, and, like the Rechabites, re- 
spectors of the memory of their excellent an- 
cestors. 

I must take some notice of this old New Eng- 
land custom ; though I cannot go into the rea- 
sons of the fathers for it, fully, because it is not 
my purpose to theologize. They believed that 
the primeval Sabbath began at evening, that the 
evening and the morning, and not the morning 
and the evening, constituted that seventh day on 
which God rested from his work of creation 
and which he blessed and hallowed. And such 
undoubtedly, is the Mosaic account of it. The 
Jews, following that primeval order, began their 
Sabbath at evening. From these and some other 
scriptural and historic (Jewish) premises, they 
inferred the same law, or limits, for the Christian 
Sabbath. Much stress was laid on the practice 
of the Jews. But the Jews' practice was in ac- 
cordance with their established mode of reckon- 
ing days. The evening and the morning made 
their civil day, and of course the evening and the 



3l6 D R R WENT. 

morning- must make their Sabbath day ; other- 
wise it would not be the seventh day, nor any 
one separate and excUisive day, that they kept, 
but a part and patch-work of two days. And 
the same consideration, the relations of the holy 
with the secular, or civil day, would seem to be 
the rule for us : our mode of reckoning days 
being from midnight to midnight, our Sabbath 
must be conformable. But the Puritans did not 
see the matter in this light. 

The Fourth Conmiandment itself says nothing 
as to the time of beginning and ending the holy 
day, but only says that one seventh day shall be 
kept, being general enough in the wording of it 
to admit of its being accommodated to such 
different divi'^ions of time as diffei-ent peoples may 
adopt. 

The Jewisn Sabbath and the Christian Sab- 
bath, or Lord's Day, are not the same institution ; 
are not commemorative of the same event ; are 
not appointed to the same ends and uses in all. 
respects ; and, consequcntl}^ are not necessarily 
subject to one and the same law. And on this 
head the Puritans appear to have had some mis- 
taken ideas. They seem to have regarded the 
one as identical in its nature, or nearly so, with 



D E R WEN T. 



317 



the Other, not materially differing from it except 
in the change of day. The Christian Sabbath 
was to be observed, they appear to have thought, 
in the same spirit, essentially, and with almost 
the same external strictness, as the Jewish ; 
being in fact, just the old institution in new rela- 
tions. Now^, the Lord's Day is as divinely and 
exclusively set apart to hallowed uses, is as im- 
portant to the church and the world, and as 
blessed in the observance of it, as was the Jew- 
ish Sabbath, but I cannot think it was intended 
to be kept in exactly the same spirit and out- 
ward manner; I cannot invest it with all that 
minuteness of circumspection, that solicitous and 
watchful self-restraint, and solemn staidness of 
countenance and demeanor, which the Levitical 
idea and the Puritans would seem to impose 
upon it. I believe it to be, in its nature and in- 
tent, a higher, freer, happier, more refreshing 
day. 

And here let me drop a query, for over-zeal- 
ous people, whether we do not crowd too many 
things, good things though they be, into the Lord's 
day, to admit of its being so much a season oircst'A.s 
it was designed to be. Rest, — not sloth, but tran- 
quillity ior the mind and the body, and recovery 



3i8 DERWE N T. 

from fatigue — was a prominent idea, if not the 
prominent one, in the primeval Sabbath. Should 
the Christian Sabbath be less recuperative? But 
how often do we hear people say that Sunday is, 
for them, the most fatiguing day of the seven. 

We kept Saturday night, as did our neighbors 
and the Derwent people generally. We were 
conscientious and cheerful in it ; there were, 
however, inconveniences attending it. It was 
not always convenient, was sometimes impracti- 
ble, to leave an unfinished work, or business, the 
moment the sun went down. It was difficult to 
repress the outgushings of joyous 3^oung life 
the instant the gnomon ceased to cast its 
shadow on the dial-plate. "Hush! girls; be 
quiet, boys ; you must not laugh and play, now." 
Saturday is always apt to seem a short day, and 
being made shorter than it actually was, by this 
curtailment of it in favor of the Sabbath, its 
worldly business would often out-go its allowed 
legitimate hours, and trench on holy time. 
Things would get belated. An unlucky load of 
wood, or hay, would come rumbling home after 
sunset, or after dark, even; a piece of sewing 
would fail of getting done by sunlight, and must 
be finished by candle-hght, or else — it would so 



D E R W E X T. 319 

happen — its owner must stay away from meeting 
on the morrow. Cases of conscience would often 
be occurrmg. Works of necessity and mercy 
were allowable ; but you might have doubts 
whether a particular thing was oae of necessity, 
or mere}' ; or, if it was, whether Providence, or 
your own remissness, had made it so. And dif- 
ferent people might judge differently, in given 
cases; and one man's liberty might be judged of 
another man's conscience. There was a tradi- 
tion in the place, of a certain good deacon, a 
man of extreme strictness, a Puritan of the Puri- 
tans, who thought it an unnecessary, and therefore 
a sinful work, to shave on the Sabbath ; and 
being half through with that operation when 
the sun went down on a Saturday night, put 
away his razor, and went to meeting the next 
day with a muffler on his face, as if he had a 
toothache, or the mumps. But how could you 
always know when the sun did set? in a cloudy 
day, suppose. There is no vesper bell to tell you, 
and your clock, or watch, if you have one, may 
be out of order, or incorrect. Or a hill hides the 
sun's setting place. " Come, children ; you, 
must leave off your play now, and come in, it is 
Saturday night." " Why, mother it is n't sun- 



220 D E R WEN T. 

down yet, it is not quite down ; for, don't you see 
it shines a little, just a little, on the tops of the 
hills there ?" 

But what of Sunday night? That, of course 
was secular. To sanctify the one evening was to 
unsanctify the other ; for we are as little author- 
ized to extend God's holy time as we are to con- 
tract it. To work, play, visit, was just as lawful 
on that evening as on any evening or day of the 
week; why not? I do not now remember that 
the noisier kinds of work were generally engaged 
in; or that the young people bounded away at 
once into gay company and mirth ; the hallowed 
influence of the day, and of the sanctuary, hard- 
ly could, in a religious community, be so soon 
and wholly dissipated. Yet there were houses 
where might be heard the buzz of the spinning- 
wheel ; some mechanics' shops would be lighted ; 
there was a good deal of visiting, though usually 
in a quiet way ; and not many years have gone 
by since town halls in certain places in New 
England (but not that I know of in Connecticut) 
were the scenes, on Sunday evenings, of very ex- 
cited pohtical assemblies and campaign meetings, 
good Saturday-night-keeping Christians attend- 
ing them. Such things were not regarded as a 



DER WENT. 



321 



profanation of the Sabbath, that being past, 
though the sentiment of propriety might be hurt 
by them. 

As for us, we spent the evening quietly with 
books, or sociably, with friends and neighbors 
dropping in upon us. But our good pastor regu- 
larly appointed a Sunday evening meeting, and 
we went to that generally, not forgetting to take 
a candle with us to help light the room. 



XXV. 



THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 



IT may be the effect of early education, a pre- 
judice (in the better sense of the word), but 
my feeling is, that Sunday is a pleasanter day in 
the country than it can be in the city. I speak 
of the day itself; you may hear better sermons 
in the city, though I shall not admit that without 
claiming a large percentage of exceptions. An 
old and shrewd judge of men and things whom I 
knew, used to say of popular city preachers of 
a certain style, that they could not " enter Fresh- 
men " in the country ; " ratan preachers," he 
sometimes called them, — showy, flashy, super- 
ficial, rather than solid and instructive. You 
worship in more costly churches, but I suspect 
that generally you feel less at home in them than 
we do in our humbler country sanctuaries You 
have gayer and more fashionably - dressed as- 
semblies, but you do not see among them more 
serious, sensible, and comely faces. You go in 

(325) 



326 D E R IV E N T. 

larger companies, but you do not, I suspect, 
take sweeter counsel by the way. 

It is with the day, however, rather than with 
the services and the people, that we are here 
concerned. I am partial to the country Sunday, 
as I have said. And the partiality is a fixed one ; 
for I have lived in cities without being cured of 
it. Do you ask me why? A complete answer 
would require graphic and minute details, if not 
the gift of poesy ; but the grounds of my prefer- 
ence may be given briefly thus. The Sabbath 
is a day for rest and meditation, and the country 
is eminently favorable to the meditative habit. 
It is not less so in winter, perhaps, than in sum- 
mer; but let us suppose, for our present pur- 
pose, a calm summer morning. Everything 
around you is in harmony with the day ; is in 
Sabbath - keeping mood: — the silent, cheerful 
meadows, — the sleeping hills, — the glassy waters, 
—the trees standing motionless, like worshippers 
and listeners, — the quiet look of animals, — the 
alternating song and silence of the birds, — the 
faint hum of insects, — the bleat of sheep on the 
hill-side, — the murmurs, hardly audible, of brooks, 
that seem to deepen, rather than disturb, the 
general tranquillity. You have an open sky 



DERWENT: 327 

above you, and a wide horizon around you. 
You breathe a pure and fragrant air. The 
scenes of Nature, God's work, and not the works 
and business of men, engage your senses, and fill 
your mind. You have a degree of freedom 
which the city does not afford you ; you are set 
in a large place, comparatively. If your house 
is at some little distance from neighbors, you can 
move without being noticed, or can talk, or sing 
without being heard by them ; nor are you dis- 
turbed by their movements and voices. You go 
by green highways to church, — passing, if you 
have far to walk, a variety of pleasing objects, — 
shades, gardens, crops, — on your way. I can re- 
member nothing more charming than the or- 
chards between us and the meeting-house were, 
sometimes, when they had put on their beautiful 
and fragrant vernal bloom between one Sun- 
day and another. I am sure the day was the 
happier and hearts the better for them. And 
you can go as deliberately and musingly as )^ou 
will, quite alone if you like, or with only your 
family, or a friend ; for it is not a thronged pave- 
ment that you are treading. 

Your cit}^ Sunday has its pleasant things, un- 
doubtedly ; but they are not of the kind which I 
28 



328 DER WENT. 

have mentioned. You look out on roofs and 
walls, with an inch of sky to see, and still less of 
the horizon. You go to church, in your car- 
riage if you keep one, through streets in such 
condition as Saturday ni"ght may have left them ; 
or on your feet, with the stream of the people, 
• along ways that are verdureless and treeless, — 
worse than treeless, for one pities the poor things 
that try to take root and heart among paving- 
stones, — ^with fronts of stores and houses, base- 
ment stairways, and platforms on your one hand, 
and gutters on the other ; with awning-posts, 
lamp-posts, and business signs innumerable ; in 
all which I see nothing favorable to devotional 
feeling. One may dislike comparisons; but com- 
parisons are not necessarily invidious. One can 
hardly express a preference in any case, without 
making or supposing a comparison of things. 
And for my part, I like to know people's prefer- 
ences, and their reasons ; there is always some- 
thing to be gathered from them. Whether one 
has his home on a prairie, or among mountains, 
or on an island, or by the sea-side, the lake-side, 
or the river-side, — wherever it may be, — I like 
to hear from him what he finds desirable, or the 
contrary, in such a home. He acquaints me 



D ER WE X T. 329 

thereby with facts, tastes, habits, and other pro- 
fitable knowledge. So, if my city friend will 
tell me about his city Sundays, as frankly as I 
have told him about my country ones, he shall 
have my thanks for doing so. 

It has grown, or is growing, out of fashion, 
even in New England, to call a house of worship 
a meeting-house ; we all say cJnircJi, now. But 
for m}' part, though I conform myself to the new 
way, — when I do not forget it, — I confess a par- 
tiality for the old. I was baptized in a meeting- 
house ; our family pew was in a meeting-house ; 
all my young ideas of public worship were con- 
ceived in an edifice known and spoken of by that 
appellation. For these reasons, personal and 
domestic, I naturally respect the name. I have 
a regard for it on other accounts. It belongs to 
the history of New England. It came in with 
the Puritans ; and I respect their memory. I do 
not say it came over with them ; for in England 
they had not been allowed to build for them- 
selves houses of worship under any name. In 
adopting it, they had a precedent in apostolic 
usage : for the word ecclcsia, in the New Testa- 
ment, which our translators render church, has 



330 



DER WENT. 



precisely the same significance as our terms 
meeting-house and meeting. As applied to per- 
sons, it signifies an assembly, a meeting: applied 
to place, it designates a meeting-place— a meet- 
ing-house, if the place be a house. 

The old meeting - house, together with its 
name, is interesting for its associations with the 
old social, as well as religious centres. Where it 
was, there used to be some of the best families ; 
the largest and best-instructed school ; the parish 
library ; the best stores ; the parade-ground ; and 
other *' court-end " things. 

It is interesting for its relations with the main 
old roads ; it marked the distances between 
towns and parishes, answering in some degree, 
the purposes of guide-posts and mile stones. 
" How far is it to such, and such, a meeting- 
house ? " would the stranger ask, along his 
journey. 

On these views of the matter my younger friends 
will excuse my old-time way of " going to meet- 
ing," while they are "going to church." In 
either case we are going heavenward, if we go 
in a riofht frame of mind. 



^&' 



Our Derwent meeting-house was, I think, 



DER WENT. 



331 



about an average specimen of such buildings of 
its date. It fronted, looking south, on a shaded 
common called The Green ; on its left was a 
high hill, with a perpendicular face of rock ; 
which was near enough to cast its shadow on 
the house through all the early morning hours. 
At the base of that steep of rock was the gray 
old school-house at which we acquired our 
spelling-book learning. There were a few neat 
dwellings around and near the Green. At its 
lower end, separated from it by a stone fence, 
was the buiying-ground. 

The house was a well-proportioned, comely 
building, not destitute of architectural orna- 
ment, but with no silly gingerbread-work, or 
other carpenterish nonsense about it, such as is 
sometimes seen on more modern country church- 
es. It adopted the Ionic order chiefly, so far as 
it affected any classic style. It had a decidedly 
respectable look about it. And Derwerit not 
being the central parish, the shire-parish, so to 
speak, of our broad old ten-by-twelve-mile town 
of Fen wick, its house of worship was never pro- 
faned by political and town meetings, with their 
talk and ballot-boxes, as all the old middle-parish 
meetingr-houses were. 



332 DER WENT. 

It had no steeple, and consequently no bell. Of 
the parishes around us, only one, Sussex, the next 
on the south, had a bell ; we could just hear it on a 
still Sunday morning. And what a rapture it was 
to listen to it ! This want of steeple and bell was 
a grave deficiency, as I used to fesl. I have at- 
tached less importance to them since that time, 
though I would not dispense with them now. 
Steeples are imposing things in the eyes of chil- 
dren, as bells are pleasing to their ears. But 
people do not appear to me to walk or ride to 
the house of God with the deep, quiet thought- 
fiilness they used to feel, without the bell ; they 
seem not to be as meditative by the way. Bells 
hurry and excite them ; or they wait for the bell, 
and then hurry. Nor are assemblies any fuller 
for them, or more punctual. People living near 
the church rely on the bell-rope to let them know 
the hour; to tell them when it is time to be get- 
ting ready, and when to go ; and they sometimes 
fail of being ready, in consequence. We, in de- 
fault of the iron tongue, looked at the clock, — at 
the dial, — at the sun itself, — and were sure to be 
in time. 

The house was seated with pews. There were 
no slips below, and none above except along the 



D E R WEN T. 333 

front, and side galleries, for the choir, and such 
miscellaneous people — bachelors and others, — as 
might choose to occupy them. Pews have a 
family look, and so have slips; but the pew, be- 
ing square, groups tlie family together more 
There is, however, this inconvenience in it- 
Some of its occupants must sit with their backs 
to the speaker ; which is worse than riding back- 
wards. And in prayer-time, all standing to- 
gether in the middle of the pew, — for we used 
to stand in prayer, — we were rather huddled, 
if the pew was full ; and if the prayer was long, 
the posture was wearisome, especially as we had 
nothing on which to lean, or bow the head ; and 
the little folks were lost and half- smothered 
among the taller ones. Our pastor was never 
long himself, but ministers that he exchanged 
with, and strangers, sometimes were. This want 
of support and of room, was remedied in some 
houses, — I think in only a few of the very old 
ones, — by having the seats made so as to be 
turned up during the standing, and then let 
down again. But the objection to this was, that 
the turning up and down made too great a clatter- 
ing, if not done more gently than some would be 
thoughtful enough to do it. The first time I 



334 DERIVE NT. 

was in a house of this description, which was 
an old and large one in Massachusetts, the seats 
were let down so violently, especially in the 
gallery, at the conclusion of the afternoon ser- 
vice, that the noise startled me, as if the gallery 
were falling. 

Our father always bid off the same pew, at the 
annual sale, against all competitors. " I hate 
this shifting about," he would say. " I like to 
have a home-feeling in my pew as I do in my 
house; which I could not have in a new one 
every twelvemonth." 

The pulpit was an agreeable one to look at ; 
and an agreeable one to speak from, as the style 
of pulpit delivery then was ; as it was not of the 
striding- to-and-fro and air-sawing, or platform, 
order. It was finished underneath with a carved 
work of scollop-shells, by which it appeared to 
be supported. Over it was the canopy called 
the sounding-board. Whether it really helped 
the voice, I cannot say, but that was the idea of 
it. It had no visible support from above or be- 
low, but was, to all appearance, merely stuck 
upon the wall behind ; and seemed not unlikely 
to come down some day upon the minister's 
pate, to the astonishment of everj^body in the 



D ER WENT. 335 

house. It was easy for a child to imagine that; 
it was not easy for me not to imagine it. Nor 
was it impossible to fancy that the house's back 
must ache, holding up the heavy thing in that 
arms -length way so long. I wondered if it 
would bear my weight, if I should be put up on 
it. And what astonishing quantities of dust had 
settled on it ; the " dust of ages ; " which nobody 
could get at to brush off. In such ways would 
the sounding-board engage my childish thoughts 
at times, while some good older people slept. 

That old house, made sacred to me by more 
and more interesting associations than any other 
place of worship ever can be, is still standing ; 
but not in its proper character. They have 
made a town-house of it. The last time I was at 
Derwent, I went to see it, and was half sorry 
that I did. It was in good repair, and looked as 
much like itself as it could in another character 
and another dress ; that is, it looked so ex- 
ternally ; I did not care to go into it. It had 
been painted a cheap russet color, instead of the 
white it used to wear. In consequence of 
changes such as time and progress are every- 
where making, it had ceased to be as central as 
it was, and a new house had been built in a dif- 



336 DERIVENT. 

ferent locality. I went to see that, too ; but 
though it was well enough for the young people 
and new-comers into the place, it had for me a 
painfully barren, unhistoric aspect, and I re- 
garded it without enthusiasm. 

Although we kept the Sabbath with conscien- 
tious strictness, on no day were we happier in 
look and feeling. I ought to say, because we kept 
it so ; for it is only those who half-keep it that 
find it irksome. And thus should it be always 
on a day that was made for man, and not man 
for it. 

We were quiet in our movements; all work 
was suspended, except such as was strictly of 
necessity and mercy ; worldl}^ subjects were dis- 
allowed in conversation ; our reading was Sun- 
day reading, the Bible claiming a large place in 
this. 

Wc were constant at public worship, all going 
when we could, shutting up the house, leaving 
Trooper or Splash at home ; who would look 
after us with a wistful face that said, " I shall be 
lonesome while you are gone, and have a dog's 
welcome for you when you return." 

My brother and I, and if the weather and 



DERWENT. 337 

walking- were good, our sisters, did not wish to 
ride; we were so much freer on our feet. And 
the wa}^ was pleasant, and not too long for 
young and active spirits. Just a mile. What 
lover of air and exercise, and rural scenes, would 
desire a shorter church-going walk than thit; or 
would prefer wheels to feet in travelling it, es- 
pecially on Sunday, when we miss our ordinary 
exercise ? For my part, I have always felt it to 
be an infelicity, on several accounts, to have 
one's home quite near the church. 

We had the road to ourselves, generally, till 
we came to Derwent Head, which was at half 
the distance. There the people would be just 
issuing from their houses, and we were mixed in 
with them. A httle further on we fell in with a 
stream of people, Lakesiders for the most part, 
coming from the west ; or, rather, they fell in 
with us, on horseback, in wagons, and on foot. 
Very rustic were these western folk, but honest, 
sensible and worthy. These, brown with dust, 
and embrowning us, in a dry time, swelled our 
company for the remainder of the way. 

Before we enter the meeting-house, I propose 
that we cast an eye on things outside of it; we 



338 DE RWEN T. 

shall observe some customs that have passed 
away with by-gone generations. You see fewer 
carriages of any description, and especially few- 
er handsome ones, than one sees around a coun- 
try church in these times. The horses, coming 
together from all sides and corners of the parish, 
present, of course, a variety of qualities and con- 
ditions. The greater part of them have a work- 
ing, week-day look, but not many have the ap- 
pearance of being overworked, or otherwise ill- 
used. You will admire, among them, the farm- 
er's sleek saddle-horse, that, instead of the con- 
finement of the city stable, or any stab'e, enjoys 
the freedom of the fields all the green summer 
through, and is "good to catch." On some of 
the horses you will see side-saddles ; whereby 
you understand that it is customary for ladies to 
come to church on horseback, without the long 
skirts that now embarrass, more than they grace, 
the wearer. Were the arrand mothers less mod- 
est than the granddaughters are ; or shall the 
long ground-sweeping garments of the latter be 
regarded only as one of the ordinary whimseys 
of fashion? A pillion would be a curiosity now, 
and a lady seated on one of those airy and un- 
stable cushions, behind her husband or other 



DERVVENT. 339 

male relative, or friend, her arm around his 
waist, on a Sunday, or even a week-day, would 
attract more attention than might be agreeable 
to her. This, however, was but a common thing 
in those days. Rustic girls went to balls with 
their partners in such a fashion. In this connec- 
tion you will notice the horse-block. Almost 
every dwelling-house had one, and the meeting- 
house as well. It was literally a block, in most 
cases, being sawed from the butt of a great tree, 
and set on end like an anvil block. 

Our meetings were generally full and attentive ; 
which is evidence that the services wei'e interest- 
ing. Our pastor, Mr. Belden, of long continu- 
ance with us, though not an orator, was a good 
man, which is better. Goodness is eloquent. 
His people loved him. Children loved him, and 
their love is one of the best evidences a minister 
can have of his fitness for his calling. 

The choir was numerous, and was, T think, as 
good as the average of countr}^ choirs. The 
greater part of the singers were good ones in the 
rough ; to whom nature had given the voice, and 
perhaps the soul for melody ; but art had not 
polished and refined them. But on the other 



340 DERIVENT. 

hand, art had not spoiled them. They were 
often reinforced by young recruits from a winter 
evening singing-?choo]. Very rarely is a sweet- 
er voice heard than that of Emily Belden of the 
treble, a daughter of the minister. Her sister 
Anna sung counter, as the alto was called, no less 
sweetly. And to me that part was, and is, the 
most charming of the four. It is such a modest, 
unambitious thing, feeling its way along the com- 
mon path, the stave, through such openings as 
the other parts have left it. A gentleman, who 
was our guest over a Sunday, said to us, after 
meeting, " I did not know which most to admire 
to-day, your very fine treble, or your tremendous 
tenor." He had reference in this to Miss Bel- 
den, and to Captain Briggs of the tenor. Capt. 
Briggs was a remarkable singer, certainly. 
Enthusiastic in whatever engaged him at all, he 
was especiall}' so in psalmody. He had passed 
his early days on the sea, and he sang as though 
he had practiced with the winds, as they played 
with the rigging of his vessel, making harp- 
strings of stays and halyards. He delighted in 
fugues, or " fuging tunes," as people called them ; 
which were quite in vogue for a time. It was 
curious to see how eagerly he would stand 



D E R WENT. 



341 



watching- the course of the fugue till it got round 
to him, and then with what ardor he would fall 
into it. He seemed to me like a man on the 
edge of a wharf, ready to throw a rope to a boat, 
and jump into it, as wind and tide swept it past 
his standing-place. Captain Ben,. as he was fa- 
miliarly called, was far from perfect in his ortho- 
epy. His pronunciation of some words was 
shocking, " Rej'ice aloud, ye sa'nts, rej'ice." 
This was not Derwentian, as Captain Ben him- 
self was not ; he brought it with him from his 
native place, Blueberry Hill. 

The "deacons' seat" was still in use at the 
time of these recollections. The deacons al- 
Avays sat in it, ex officio, apart from their families 
and the rest of mankind ; albeit they had no du- 
ty to attend to there except on sacramental oc- 
casions. Devout and venerable men our two 
aged deacons, Smalley and Lucas, were, and one 
might wish he were as good as they ; but it 
seemed an awful thing to sit there, as they did, 
in the shadow of the pulpit, and look so solemn. 

Another old custom which had not then gone 
into disuse, was that of having tithing-men. 
They were appointed annually by the legislature, 
as were justices of the peace. Their duty, like 



342 D ER WENT. 

that of the proctor of an English University, was 
to preserve order in the church during the ser- 
vices. The term was vulgarly corrupted into 
tiding-maji, as designating one whose business 
was to bear tidings of disorderly behavior in meet- 
ings to magistrates or parents. They did not, 
however, commonly report offenders, except in 
aggravated cases, but deemed it enough to re- 
buke them on the spot, with sharp looks, shak- 
ings, or perhaps a slight cuffing. I suspect that 
they provoked more disorder than they prevent- 
ed, or repressed. I do not believe in the wis- 
dom of espionage over morals, in whatever man- 
ner, place, or guise it may be exercised, whether 
by officials, gossips, or popular-reform societies. 
Always odious, it stirs up the will, provokes re- 
sentments, and sets pride at odds with con- 
science and duty. 

It should be mentioned here, as showing the 
world's progress in matters of comfort, that 
meeting-houses were not warmed in winter. To 
warm them with wood fireg and fire-places would 
have been impracticable ; and stoves, and anthra- 
cite, " black stones " as people satirically called 
that kind of fuel, doubting its combustibility, at 
first, had not come into use. Imagine, then, how 



DERIVE XT. 343 

pinched and blue we were, in our pews, on a bit- 
ter cold day. And think how thin the congrega- 
tion would be now, if word were sent round the 
parish on a winter morning, " There will be no 
fire in the church to-day.'' As some small reme- 
dy for this great discomfort, foot-stoves were 
used. The last thing, on leaving home, was to 
fill the stove-pan with good live coals, sprinkling 
ashes over them ; and these must be replaced 
Avith fresh ones at noon, either at home or at 
some hearth near the meeting. This stove-filling 
was one of the penalties of living near the meet- 
ing house. A lady told me she had counted six- 
teen stoves at once, at her parlor fire, waiting for 
their turn. These portable little furnaces were for 
women and girls only ; it was not for us hardy 
men and boys to use them ; though a mother's 
or a sister's hand did sometimes slip them under 
my own ice-cold shoes. And I remember these 
small warmers pleasantly for the use that was 
made of them in a neighborly way. Often they 
v/ould be handed over into the next pew, where 
they would be welcomed with a grateful nod, or, 
if not needed, gratefully declined. 

I have no doubt that our home habits of that 
day enabled us to endure those cold churches as 



344 



D E R JVF.A'T. 



we could not now. With our open fire-places 
and large flues, we had always a free circulation 
of air about us ; and we slept in cold chambers. 
But to go now from our stove-heated and furnace- 
heated parlors and bedrooms, and sit a service 
through in a fireless church, would seriously en- 
danijer our health. 



A dismissed congregation dispersing from 
around a church is too familiar a scene to engage 
the attention of grown psople ; but to the young 
observer, to whom all scenes are studies, it pre- 
sents a variety of noticeable particulars. He 
sees in it characters, manners, styles, tastes, con- 
ditions, with sometimes an exciting, or an amus- 
ing incident. As I pause with m}^ pen in hand, 
my memory gives me instances. 

There is that plain, good family, the Greys. 
They are getting into their unpretentious, com- 
fortable carriage. What a sensible and cheer- 
ful look they have ! How unaffectedly and pleas- 
antly they give and receive salutations ! They 
are not ambitious to attract attention, nor solici- 
tous to avoid it; they have no thought about 
that. What they are most conscious of is, that 



DER WENT. 345 

it Is the Lord's da}' : that the}' hav^e been hearing- 
his word, and engaged in solemn worship. 

Turn from these to the Rufuses. Mr. Rufus 
parades his flashy, bran-new wagon and his 
prancing fancy horse so close before the steps 
that there is hardly room for people to get out. 
He helps his saffron-faced wife in with an air, 
and then his buttercup daughters; gets in him- 
self, cracks his long-lashed whip, and away they 
go, who but they? leaving a wide wake behind 
them, as the sailors say. 

A young woman, worthy, but of rustic breed- 
ing, and painfully bashful, whose home is in a 
corner, has left her horse at a fence, quite away 
from the house. She goes to him, pets and talks 
to him a little, and is answered by his glad low 
whinny, gets on from the fence, tucks her dress 
about her feet, and pulls the rein, taking care 
that the bulk of the people shall be well ahead 
of her. 

A young lady differently educated springs into 
her saddle from the horse-block, with a score of 
people around her, and moves off sociably along 
with others that are going her way. 

Once, in the midst of a number of carriages into 
which people were getting before the door, there 



346 DERIVE NT. 

was a sorrel, bob-tailed, ugl}' horse, which, all of a 
sudden, began to fall into the most extravagant 
behavior, rearing and kicking. A dozen people 
were imperilled by him, and got out of the way 
as fast as they could. His owner could do noth- 
ing with him, and for his own personal safety 
(for the fur}^ reared and struck at and bit him), 
he let him go, and away he went down the Green, 
kicking all the way, and staving in the wagon. 
The' place was thick with people, and for a mo- 
ment there was great anxiety on their account. 
" Take care ! Take care, there, " cried several 
voices unnecessarily, for the smashed and rat- 
tling wagon made noise enough to warn them. 
They opened to the right and left and made a 
wide passage for the beast. At one of the lower 
corners of the Green there was a pound ; the 
gate of it was open ; the horse plunged into it ; 
the wheels, too wide for the gate- way, stuck fast 
there ; the violence of the fetch-up cleared the 
horse ; and there he was, self-impounded ; for the 
wrecked wagon shut him in. " I would never 
take him out," exclaimed a gentleman, breaking 
the silence of a great sensation. 

It struck my brother and me oddly one Sunday, 
after meeting, to see one of our "out-west" folks 



DERWENT. 3^7 

going down the road, among many other home- 
going people, with a bridle in his hand. " What 
has become of your horse, Mr. Bush?" asked 
one of his neighbors, — calling to him from on 
horseback. " My horse has gone Jiome afoot," he 
replied. The conceit of such an answer so 
amused us, Walter and me, that we had to turn 
away our faces to conceal the laugh which we 
could not repress. It is so easy for young people 
to laugh. The horse had slipped his bridle, and 
left it hanging on the post. 



x;cvi. 

THE T^A^O GREAT EDU' 
GATORS. 



"T^E QUINCEY, speaking of his childhood, 
-'— ^ said, that, if he should return thanks to 
Providence for all the separate blessings of his 
early situation, these four he would single out 
as chiefly worthy to be commemorated : that he 
lived in the country ; that he lived in solitude ; 
that his infant feelings were moulded by the 
gentlest of sisters, not by horrid pugilistic broth- 
ers ; finally, that he and they were dutiful chil- 
dren of a pure, holy, and magnificent church. 

This is so accordant with my own grateful 
retrospection that I incline to make a preface of 
it to this, my closing chapter, I lived in the 
country, but not in solitude. Our house was not 
a hermitage ; we had neighbors near enough for 
most of the needs and uses of social vicinage, — 
near enough for mutual aid and sympathy, and 
friendly calls, and to save us from being lone- 
some, — to say nothing of our numerous and 
(351) 



352 DER IVfJVT. 

lively work-people. At the same time, they were 
not inconveniently near to us ; they did not 
cramp and straighten us for room, cast no shad- 
ows on our windows and door-stones, shut ofif 
no prospect, hid no landscape beauties from us, 
imposed no restraints on the freedom of our 
voices and movements, as neighbors necessarily 
do, whose eaves drop on each other's yards and 
gardens. For so much isolation as this, one may 
reasonably be thankful ; but I do not call it soli- 
tude. 

I had gentle sisters, and as womanly as they 
vv^ere gentle ; if they had been less than this, they 
would have been unworthy of the best of moth- 
ers. I had no " horrid pugilistic brothers :" a 
brother I had, of noblest qualities, between whom 
and me there was a depth and constancy of love 
not often equalled in the breasts of boys. Alas ! 
my brother — he has passed from earth since I 
began to write these papers, and I miss him 
much. Yet, though I miss, I do not mourn him ; 
for he has gone in a ripe age, leaving an honored 
name behind hira, and — best of all consolations 
for survivors — has gone with an unclouded hope 
of heaven. 

De Quincey was thankful that he passed his 



D ER WENT. 



353 



young life in the countr3\ I presume that every 
country -born and country - bred man who has 
seen much of the world, or has done, or been, 
much in it, and has reflected on the circum- 
stances which form characters and men, is 
thankful for such a providence in his own case. 

The reasons for such thankfulness are more 
and deeper than can be set down in a few brief 
paragraphs ; but let me advert to a comprehen- 
sive and very significant fact, in reference to the 
subject. How is it that the great majority of 
leading minds in the world have ever been of 
country origin ? Look through all classes of 
men, and you will find, generally, that those wh.o 
have done the best in their professions and pur- 
suits are men whose birth and early training 
were in the country ; and, not unfrequently, in 
districts extremely rural ; in solitudes, even, as 
De Quincey says, was his case. If any one thinks 
that I am dealing in wholesale hazardous asser- 
tion here, let him make for us his own list of able 
and successful men, — jurists, statesmen, scholars, 
authors, merchants, soldiers, and others, — and 
tell us whence they came. Where and what 
were they in their boyhood ? Of course the city 
has its distinguished and successful sons, but the 



354 



DERWEN T. 



preponderance is, by great odds, in favor of the 
country. 

The truth is, the country and the city educate 
their children differently. By education I mean 
here, not that which we get from schools and 
teachers, and which is not so properly called 
education as instruction ; this may be the same 
in both. I mean that which comes from circum- 
stances, — from nature, providence, firesides, man- 
ners, customs ; in short, from natural and social 
influences generally. 

The ends of education are physical, mental, and 
moral. With reference to these, let us look at 
the circumstances of the country-born and coun- 
try-bred child, and at those of the child born and 
brought up in the city. 

The city-born, looking out from his nurse's, or 
his mother's arms, sees such objects as a window 
in the city opens to him ; and that is his first 
vision of his outer world. It is a world of walls 
and roofs, pavements, gutters, awnings, goods, 
all sorts of vehicles, all sorts of people, all 
sorts of city noises, and city smells ; with some 
streaks and spots of sky. A different situation 
from this is that in which is cast the lot of his 
young contemporar3' of the country ; who, from 



DERIVENT. 355 

his birth, has a green world around, and an open 
heaven above him, and is conversant with rural 
s:enes and industries. 

The out-door freedom which the country child 
enjoys is a great thing for him. I pity a confined 
child, pining at a window, or wearing away the 
tedious hours with insipid toys and pictures, — 
as so many are doing in close and crowded 
towns. The country child has room to range 
about, to run, and jump, and look ; and that 
without the vexatious restraints of servant or 
nurse. Hireling nurses, at the present day, are 
the plagues and pests of children, especially of 
boys. Where are the mothers? It was not so 
two generations since. 

In one of the streets of a neighboring town 
the other day, I was overtaken and passed by a 
fine little fellow running with his might. " I've 
got out !" he shouted, to me, a perfect stranger 
to him, as he ran. " Got out of what ?" I asked. 
" Out of the gate," he said, without slackening 
his pace or turning his head. It is so delightful 
to all young things to be at large and free. 

This out-door freedom in infancy and early 
childhood, is not merely pleasant to the child, 
but is important to him in several educational 



356 DERIVE NT. 

respects : it concerns the health, temper, and 
efficiency of the future man. 

The young life of the country, all the way up 
from infancy, tends to the formation of healthy 
constitutions and manly habits. Its active sports, 
such as ball-playing, bathing, boating, nutting, 
gunning, skating, and the like, have that effect. 
There is nothing invidious in this. The young 
men and boys of the city are just as much in- 
clined, naturally, to athletic and manly exercises, 
as are those of the country, and would do the 
same things in the same circumstances. Manly 
feelings and manly ways are the natural and nor- 
mal ones of boys, as womanly ways and feelings 
are of girls ; but the city is not the place for 
their development. 

It has not the means for it. The city, with its 
wealth, can do many things : it can lay out 
parks ; make great reservoirs ; build gymnasia : 
but it cannot make boys' ball grounds of its paved 
streets ; nor buy, for boys to swim in, these great 
baths, our lakes, ponds, and rivers ; nor give 
them to breathe the pure smokeless air of these 
our open blue heavens ; nor our landscapes to 
see ; nor our wilds to ramble in. 

The young life of the country is not all a pas- 



D E R WENT. 357 

time : there is work, as well as play, both for the 
mind and for the hands. Boys are sent to school 
in winter; but in summer, as soon as they are 
old enough, the}^ are put to some kind of manual 
labor. The farmer's sons work on the farm ; the 
merchant's, mechanic's, and other landless men's 
sons, all find something to do. There are few 
who are not early inured to work of some kind, — 
to toil and the bread-earning sweat of the brow. 
And this is a discipline of the highest importance 
to the future man in a business point, of view, to 
say nothing of its concern with his morals. 
Whatever be the calling he may adopt, whether 
of the hands or of the mind, or wherever he may 
prosecute it, he will bring to it this one essential 
qualification, that he does at least know what it 
is to work, and will be no drone in it. And to 
this consideration you may add another ; espe- 
cially if he is brought up on a farm. In his boy- 
hood, while at work along with older hands, he 
is acquiring a knowledge of common men and 
things ; the kind of knowledge which, like com- 
mon sense, so many people particularly want. 
It is safe to hold that no one knows common 
men at all well and thoroughly, who has not 
mixed with them more or less in their labors. 



358 DERIVENT. 

The country has its advantag-es for the intel- 
lectual and the moral education, as well as for 
the physical ; these all going on together. It is 
the place for reading and thinking. Your spare 
hours, particularly your winter fireside hours, 
are not continually broken in upon by frivolous 
calls and conversations. You are secure of your 
seclusion ; and the feeling of security is almost 
as essential to the enjoyment of one's books, 
thoughts, and pen, as is seclusion itself. You 
are not tempted to- waste your evenings at places 
of fashionable amusement, nor to pass them in 
gay festivities, that fatigue and dissipate, rather 
than refresh, or in any way profit, either the body 
or the mind. If you do not read and think more 
in the country than you would, or well could, in 
the city, the fault is your o.wn. And it is read- 
ing, thinking, and observation, that make the 
man. He may, without these habits, pull a rope, 
or turn a crank, but he is not competent to direct 
a movement. 

The country is itself a great book for study. 
It is everywhere open, fresh, suggestive, and in- 
structive. It never tires. There are books 
which we are glad to get through with and 
close : the book of nature is not one of these. It 



DERIVE NT. 359 

has no dull pages. Nor is there any last leaf to 
it, to which one may come and say, there is the 
end : I have read it all, and may shut the volume. 
We cannot exhaust the studies that are open to 
us in earth and sky. The clouds alone, with 
their endless sublimities and beauties, have some- 
thing new to show us every day. If, then, you 
have but the ordinary capacities and sensibilities 
of our common human nature, it is not possible 
that you should grow up from your childhood 
amid the scenes which surround you in the coun- 
try, without learning much that you would never 
learn at all elsewhere, nor fully in an}'- circum- 
stances, after the period of your childhood and 
youth. It is true that all the kinds of informa- 
tion you may get in this way may be material, 
simply and directly, to the business you propose 
to follow ; yet no knowledge is valueless to the 
man, as such ; and it is the man that directs and 
shapes the business. 

It is to the country that the poet and the 
painter go for their images and colors ; and 
though you may be neither painter nor poet, 
yet, living in their world, with a perceptive, open 
eye, it is but a natural, not to say a necessary 
consequence, that some part of the poet's images 



360 D E R WEN T. 

and the painter's colors should come to belong 
to your mental furniture, and give to your mind 
an interest which would el e be wanting- to it. 

In the various ways which have now been in- 
dicated, the country brings up its youth with 
advantages which the city does not and cannot 
give. Add to these another, of a moral kind. 
It brings them up plainer, — forms them to sim- 
pler manners, habits and ideas, — -inculcates in 
them truer views of character and of living. 
The well-trained young man of the country be- 
lieves that character is a distinct thing from cloth 
• — that it does not depend on the fineness of a 
coat. He deprecates expensiveness and luxury. 
He is not ashamed to be economical. He will 
start poor in the world, if he must, and will work 
his way up to competence and a position among 
men by force of his own industry, integrity, and 
talents. If the patronage of wealth, or influence, 
is offered him, he will avail himself of it ; if not 
offered, he will get along without it. And he 
will choose a wife— when he comes to that — of 
the same sensible and practical ideas as his own. 
And theirs will be a love such as outlives the 
hotiey-moon — founded on harmon}^ of views and 
sentiments, and sustained by mutual helpfulness. 



D E R WEN T. 361 

I know, indeed, that too many of our young 
men going from the country into the city, are 
poor exemplars of what I have been saying. 
They fall into expensive habits ; they dress and 
live beyond their means, and think they must, if 
they would be respected. Very likely they are 
ashamed to have it known that they are from the 
country, especially if they come from some ob- 
scure town. Poor, weak youths ! the country, that 
you are ashamed of, is ashamed of you. Yours 
are not the strong characters that are fitted to 
success, either in the city or out of it. 

I think that the reasons which have been given, 
are sufficient to show why so large a proportion 
of the class of successful and distinguished men 
are found to have been born and brought up in 
the country ; and that they justify any one's 
thanks for such a birth and breeding, if Provi- 
dence has so cast his early lot. 

There are thousands of young men going for 
places and employment from the country to the 
city, all the while ; sometimes villages are thus 
left almost destitute of them. There would be 
no help for this, if help were desirable. On a 
large view of things it is well ; for so the coun- 



362 



DER WENT. 



try is continually supplying- freshness and vigor 
to the city. As it regards the young men them- 
selves, individually, it is in many cases the best 
thing for them, as the event proves ; while in 
many others it is the worst. 

In these sketches of young life in the country, 
I have had the farm in view chiefly, and before 
I dismiss them I have a few things to say in be- 
half of that kind of life for young men. 

I would say to any young friend of mine. It 
you have been bred a farmer, and if you own a 
farm, or are likely soon to own one by inherit- ' 
ance or gift, or have means to buy one, do not 
lightl}^ turn your back upon it for any chance 
that the city may hold out to you. With the 
exception of the student-life, in one or another 
of its forms, professional and literary, if even that 
be an exception, — as, with proper gifts for it, it 
may be for usefulness, but not for ease, — I know 
of no more eligible occupation than that of the 
farmer ; and this is a judgment founded on a 
long observation of pursuits and results. The 
reasons for it might fill a volume : I will indicate 
a few of them. 

The tarmer's is acknowledged to be the most 



DERIVE NT. 363 

healthful of all occupations. A good appetite 
sweet sleep, and cheerful spirits, are its special 
gifts. There is none more healthful for the mind, 
or which allows you equal freedom for its culti- 
vation and improvement. You are free for this, 
not only when work is done, but while at work. 
You can think at the plough, and meditate in the 
fields, as the merchant among his goods, custom- 
ers and ledgers, or the mechanic with his tools, 
hardly can. Such a life is the freest from anxiety 
and care : you can lie down at night feeling that 
your crops are growing while you sleep, and that 
your market is sure, be the times what they may. 
It is the most certainly remunerative : for, though 
some other business may seem to promise you 
greater, or more speedy riches, — supposing 
riches to be the main thing to live for, — yet, 
along with that promise, it subjects you to 
chances of reverse and failure. It is not so with 
the farm. The financial crises and convulsions 
that so often and so rudely strike down and anni- 
hilate other fortunes, cannot sweep away your 
land. You have a stable home on it, and, are 
sure of present competence and comfort, if noth- 
ing more ; and with that, if you have Agur's 
wisdom, you will be satisfied. But you have 



364 DERWENT. 

more than that : your farm, well managed, ad- 
mits of a steady, though not rapid thrift, that 
promises to satisfy the exigencies of the future. 
There is no truer independence than that of 
the husbandman. You have scope for the exer- 
cise of taste. A well-tilled farm is a pleasing 
object ; and there is no end to the beauties it 
may be made to assume. In this idea of it I in- 
clude a neat, though unambitious dwelling, a 
garden, flowers, fruits, and many things which 
young hands should delight to cultivate. 

But here let us ask what is the true idea of the 
farmer, regarded as a man. There are men, un- 
washed, unshaven, unmannered, who, because 
they own land and work on it, call themselves 
farmers, and pass for such ; but these are no more 
true representatives of the agricultural class 
than the dirty small shopman is the beau-ideal 
of the merchant. The true husbandman is a man 
of cultivated mind and gentlemanly deportment. 
There is nothing in his business to make him 
less than this, and less than this he ought not to 
allow himself to be. 

One thing more. Among your fond dreams 
there comes the thought of wife and children ; 
and where can a young family be more favorabl)^ 



DERIVE NT. 365 

trained to virtue, health, and happiness, than in 
their own loved home upon the farm ? 

But I remind myself that it is to young men 
that I am talking here, and that, where pursuits 
for life are in question, advice to them generally 
amounts to little. They will follow their own 
predilections in such matters. Doubtless that is 
best ; the hand of God is in it ; for so all employ- 
ments, even the hardest, and the roughest, and 
the humblest, find willing hands to take them, 
ind the world goes on. 



'^Not a Home hut would he the hetterfor hwmig tJiis book.'' 

STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. E. 
Prentiss, Author of " The Flower of the Fam- 
ily," " The Susy Books,'' etc., etc. One vol- 
ume i2mo, 432 pages, cloth, $1.75. 

"A capital book, quite the best of its class we have seeu of late, 
bearing a genuine, unalloyed CTiristian influence. It is so fresh, so 
Bpicy, so womanly, so thoroughly natural, in short, that it seems im- 
possible that it can be fiction. To trace the growth of a perfect 
woman, Is a rare and precious privilege." — Sprinqfield Republican. 

" We have read the book with unmixed and strong pleasure. Our 
critical eye discerns scarcely a fault in it, while its merits seem many 
and po&itive. Human nature is. exhibited as it really exists, and not 
as novelists usually paint it. The characters are natural — real men 
and women -and act just as Scripture and observation teach us they 
do act in the circumstances. And the teaching is singularly free from 
cant, from stereotyped phrases, from morbid tendencies ; and the relig- 
ion it advocates is an intelligent, cheerful, healthy one, full of lovo 
and good works. " It is a book to help ' heavenward' the criing and 
struggling soul ; to teach useful and needed lessons to the unhappy 
and the afliicted ; and to inspire all with nobler views of duty and 
higher aims of life." — Am. Quarterly. 

" The book i.-. in fact, the history of a character; commencing at tho 
iige of sixteen, and continued during a period of nearly thirty years. 
IL marks the progress of unrenewed nature in its fierce conflicts and 
quarrels between its passions and its reason, its self-will and the 
voice of conscience, its seK-love and the Divine law, until ' wearied,' 
tempest-tossed, and almost despairing, it ' flies as a bird to its moun- 
tain,' and finds a 'Saviour' and 'peace.' It exhibits the power of 
religion to make a lovely character, to induce self-control, to soften 
the asperities that sharpen and embitter the daily intercourse of life, 
and to develop those nameless amenities in daughter, wife, or mother, 
that makes one's presence a perpetual benediction." — Christian at 
Work. 

"We can hardly conceive of a more truthful mirror of life than 
this book holds up of the characters in it. The struggles heavenward 
of a very human heart, from guihood to young womanhood, in tho 
married relation, and in the duties and discipline of maternity, in all 
their common, every-day details, are spread out before the reader in a 
way that makes him constantly feel that the record is a true trans- 
cript, not only of one life, but of a represeutative human life. vVe 
find so many and such rich lessons in it, so full of gospel teachings, 
cud free from the conventional forms of such teachings, th.at we can- 
not attempt to specify, but simply commend the book as one of the 
purest, tniest and best that has ever been written. Not a home but 
would be the better lor having it, and not a Sunday-school where therf 
is a class of larger girls, but ought to procure one or more copies foi 
ite library." — /S'. S. ^Titnes. 

A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 770 Broadway, N. Y. 

Sold \ry all Booksellers^ or sent by mail, prepaid on receipt of price. 



"' Aunt Jane's Hero is so like people we meet, that we are 
anxious to have them read the hook, in order to profit hy 
its teachings. We like it and believe others will.'' — Tho 
Advance. 

A New Volume by the Author of " Stepping Heavenward." 

AUNT JANE'S HERO. One Vol. i2mo, 30c 

pp. $1.50- 

" The object of Aunt Jane's Hero is to deijict a Christian home 
whose happiness flows from the living Eock, Christ Jesus. It pro- 
tests also against the extravagance and other evils of the times, which 
tend to check the growth of such homes, and to show that there are 
still treasures of love and peace on earth, that may be bought with- 
out money and without price." 

" The plot of this story is the simplest, the material? the common 
est — only a young man, professedly a Christian, yet living a life of 
worldliness — who is brought back through sharp trial? to regain some 
of his lost ground ; the story of his love and marriage, and pictures 
of a happy Christian home, with Aunt Jane's influence, like a golden 
thread running through the whole ; just such scenes and incidents as 
may happen any day, anywhere. Tet out of these simple materials is 
vvrought a story of great beauty and power. The titl6 of the book 
seems to us a misnomer. Aunt Jane's Hero is really much less of a 
hero than is his wife, little Maggie, of a heroine. Her character is one 
of rare strength and sweetness ; but she needs it all in keeping up 
hei husband's courage in dark days, in sustaining his faith, in redeem- 
ing Lim from selfishness and prompting him to active Christian work. 
Thfc key-note of the volume is struck in one of the closing para- 
graphs : ' Those who have got into the heart of this happy home 
havt wanted to know its secret, seeing plainly that money had little 
to do with it; and as you have con"flded in me, I will be equally 
fran?^ with you, and tell you this secret in a few words : We love God 
and we love each other.' " — The Advance, Chicago. 

" "K'he power of a living practical religiou, as the main thing in life, 
is br»jught out in contrast with the standards of fashionable morality. 
Soir»« things in the book we might criticise, but these may be safely 
left \o the reader's judgment. It has most of the features which made 
Stfjmnfi Heavenward so deservedly popular, and, like it, deserves 
thoughtful reading." — Christian Witness. 

''Aunt Jane's Hero is a very human being, and like all of Mrs. 
Prentiss' characters, has just that taint of ' total depravity' which 
proves him a child of Adam and not a creature of fancy. Her charac- 
ters are not so good, but the lessons taught by their lives may be 
learned and practiced by others." — The Interior. 

" To mention another volume from the pen and heart of Mrs. Pren- 
tiss is to send a pleasure and the promise of good to every reader. 
Already has she secured such a place in the afifections of those whose 
sympathies are with us, that we have but to tell them that this new 
book is rich in all that wealth of thought and sentiment and feeling 
wt ich have made her other works so useful and popular, and our 
readers will wish to see Aunt Jane's Hero at once."— A^. T. Observer. 

ANSON D. r. RANDOLPH & CO,, 770 Broadwar, N. V. 

Sold iy all Booksellers, and sent ly maU prepaid on receipt if 
the price. 



Si- 



A jStory FOf\ ou^ Older pii\LS. 



"A book excellent in purpose, wise in teaching, and plensant in 
aiyle.'"— Morning Star. 




SIGNAL LIGHTS. 



"A capital story of domestic life, with more than usual freshness in 
the material surroundings, and told in excellent style."— ;Sf. 8. Times. 

" None could read carefully this tenderly told story without being the 
better for it. It is written with a more than ordinary degree of refine- 
ment, and has that subdued tone^ to use the artist's expression, which 
recommends it to the cultured people who have learned to regard sensa- 
tion and flash as nearly allied to vulgarity. The religious teaching is 
very pure and lovely ; the domestic pictures have a rare naturalness and 
delicacy of finish, and the sweet Letters scattered through its pages bear 
al' the marks of real ones, so simple and unstrained are they." — So. 
Churcltman. 



ANSON B. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

770 Broadway, New York. 

One vol. 12mo. 833 pages, neatly bound in cloth, sent by mail, free of 
expense, on receipt of price, $1.25. 



K" 



-a 



£! 



A 3tof\y FOf^ OUR Older Girls. 



a 



" We commend it to our tjirl-readurs as a book calculated to exert an 
inflnence wholly gentle and good."— Washington ChronicU. 




ANNIE MASON; 

on, 

THE TEMPLE OF SHELLS. 



"This story possesses much more than ordinary interest and power. 
It gives a beautiful illustration of the benefits to be derived from Chria- 
tian patience, charity, courage, and faith. Had it been written by an 
author better known to fame, and had it been brought into notice by 
elaborate and conspicuous advertisement, this volume would have com- 
manded as many readers as have been secured by books of much greater 
pretension and less vaevii.''''— Commercial Advertiser. 

" The story is well told, forcibly written, and will be found an attract- 
ive book for every-day reading."— £'xpre««. 

" The way of salvation is made plain, and counsel and advice judi- 
ciously intermingled with enlivening incident." — Advocate and 
Guardian. 



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One vol. 12mo, 420 pages, neatly bound in doth, sent by mail, free of 
expensp, on receipt of price, $1.50. 

fJ5 ■ — a 



A. 3tof\y For\ OUR Older Girls. 
S a 

" A fresL and spirited story, well calculated to interest and please.'* — 
Evening Journal. 






FABRICS. 

A STORY OF TO-DAY. 



''The story is written with a great deal of grace .".nd refinement, and 
is intended to be a ' Society ' novel, holding up the selfishness and world- 
liness of the merely IJashionable, in contrast with Christian simplicity and 
soJf-denial.." — Christian Witness. 

" A well-written story, and the evident aim of the author is to do good 
to every reader. It is a very interesting narrative, and the pleasures 
and misfortunes and unlucky days of the young lady who figures prin- 
cipally, are described iu a manner true to life. It does one good to read 
such a book, it serves to impress one in a solemn yet pleasant manner 
of the great aim and end of life, and inculcates those excellent moral pre- 
cepts which all would do well to imitate." — 7'raiiso-ipt. 

" A story of every day life, which will be liked for the simple nataral- 
ness of the incidents and the good lesson it coilveys." — A^. J. Journal. 



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One vol. 12mo, 380 pnges, neatly bound in cloth, sent by mail, free of 
experse, on receipt of price, $1.50. 



K- 



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A: Story foi\ ouf\ Older Gii^ls. 
B5 53 



iS 



" It may be safely commended as deeply mterestiug."— ^o^to/i B»- 
carder. 




Miss Roberts' Fortune. 



A STORY FOR GIRi^S. 



" A book for older girls. Its influence upon the reader is excellent. 
The plot is simple, the elaboration of the story very fine, showing the gov- 
erning purpose of the author. The vicissitudes of life are made to pay 
tribute to a sound Christian moralitj', and to aid in building up a true 
womanly character. It is a healthy book, and as such we commend it."— 
ProvidetKX Press. 

" A story of genuine strength and merit. The heroine is an orphan 
and an heiress, but with tendencies which tend to make her life a lonely 
and unhappy one. Her resolution to overcome these, and the growth of 
her character in all natural and healthy directions, is beautifully de- 
lineated. Besides Miss Roberts, there are other hearty, joyous, quaint, 
good people. And a quiet little love story running through the whole 
does not detract from its interest."— 7%e Advance. 

" There is the odor of true Christian sweetness about the leading 
character, Helen, that will find admirers, while the story in its conrse 
shows the gradual development of her character into that of a swee t, 
unselfish woman."— J5«ar<A and Home. 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
770 Broadway, New York. 

One vol. 12mo, 380 pages, neatly bound in cloth, $1.50. Sent by mtA\ 
post-paid, on remitting price. 



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